


Searching High and Low

by PyrrhaIphis



Series: Freelance Journalist [2]
Category: Hail Caesar! (2016), Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Crossover, Established Relationship, Investigative Journalism, M/M, Post-Canon, Scenes in Two Time Periods, The infamous foul mouth of Curt Wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:28:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 71,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25079155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PyrrhaIphis/pseuds/PyrrhaIphis
Summary: Arthur Stuart is given an assignment to investigate the disappearance of a fellow journalist.  He quickly concludes that she disappeared because of something she learned as she worked on her own story, a retrospective on the most infamous defection in American history.  But can he find out what she learned without meeting the same fate?  And without ruining his still somewhat wobbly new relationship with Curt Wild, whose rock career is beginning to revive?It is quite crucial that you watch "Hail, Caesar!" before reading this if you ever intend to watch the movie at all.  The very first chapter gives stuff away.  Seriously, big spoilers.  And it's streaming on Netflix right now, so there's no excuse, right? ;)  The notes on the first chapter contain a link to the summary of the first part in this series, in case you skipped it due to its triggering content.
Relationships: Arthur Stuart/Curt Wild, Hobie Doyle/Laurence Laurentz
Series: Freelance Journalist [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816195
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The summary of the previous fic in the series is at https://docs.google.com/document/d/19oGh5YSh9oCo8U7S69fytwgNUYNAPl4YpDKInbaVe2Y/edit?usp=sharing for those "Velvet Goldmine" fans who skipped that fic because of the mass shooting that preceded the events of the fic. I don't think it's necessary for anyone coming from the "Hail, Caesar!" side of things to read either the previous fic or its summary. (Unless you also know "Velvet Goldmine" of course. If you don't already know it...well, it's my favorite movie, so obviously I think it's well worth watching, but I don't think it's streaming anywhere, so it's not easy to watch it right now.)
> 
> Now, about "Hail, Caesar!" This is actually kinda-sorta an AU for it. Because there's this line from the Lockheed guy about how Lockheed was recently involved in a nuclear test at Bikini Atoll, right? So when I was trying to put together the pieces of how this fic was going to work, I took that line as the only clue I had as to exactly when the movie is set. There were two runs of tests at Bikini Atoll, one that started in 1949, and one that started in 1954. Since the movie is definitely in the '50s, not the late '40s, I assumed that meant it was set in '54, and my brain immediately fixed on "thirtieth anniversary" for the angle of the original story on the defection. Only eventually I bought a copy of the screenplay (I hadn't initially realized that they were still publishing screenplays!) and saw that it was actually supposed to be circa 1951. Oops. But I loved the thirtieth anniversary stuff so much--not to mention that this coming at the end of the McCarthy era instead of closer to the beginning gave me a lot of interesting angles to play with--that I couldn't bring myself to go back and change it. Hence, slightly AU.
> 
> And, finally, as always, please let me know if I use any inappropriate Americanisms in the POV or dialog of a British character.

**New York City, 1984**

“You wanted to see me, Mr. Nathan?” Arthur was not yet entirely comfortable with the idea of being called at home—even if it was, technically, someone else’s home—to be told he had an assignment and needed to show up to meet with his boss. For that matter, he was not the slightest bit comfortable with reporting directly to a multi-millionaire of uncertain ambitions.

“Yes, yes, come in, sit down, sit down.” Nathan gestured to the chair opposite his desk. His office had starkly designed furniture, minimalist designs carved from ebony, and the only things hanging on his wall were two Kandinskys and a Mondrian. “I’ve got an assignment that I think is perfect for you,” he said, handing a manila folder to Arthur. “One of my other freelancers has gone missing. I want you to find her and write up a story about what happened to her.”

“Missing?” Arthur repeated, without so much as looking at the folder. “Isn’t that something the police should handle?”

“It is, it most assuredly is, but they won’t do it.” Nathan shook his head. “They say it’s out of their jurisdiction. Claim she left town on her own, and if she didn’t come back…well, that’s someone else’s problem. But she was working on a story, and she wouldn’t have abandoned it. Something’s happened to her, and since the police won’t go looking, someone else is going to have to do it.”

“Why me? I’m not exactly a detective.” There _was_ such a thing as a private detective, after all. If the police couldn’t or wouldn’t find someone, surely a private detective was the logical next step.

“Really? The man who found Brian Slade isn’t a detective?”

Arthur’s breath seized up in his lungs. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, it wasn’t hard to figure out, not at all. I went and had a word with your former editor—I’m a stickler for knowing things, you see—and he did mention that you’d come charging up one day excitedly yelling that you knew _who_ Brian Slade is. Well, you wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t change his name, now would you? No, you wouldn’t. Looking at his full original name, it doesn’t take a genius, especially in light of everything that’s happened since the attack on Curt Wild’s life.” Nathan shook his head. “Still, I’m impressed that you were able to figure it out so quickly, and without the clues I’d been handed.”

“Mr. Nathan, you can’t—you can’t do anything with that information. He made me sign a non-disclosure agreement. If you—if you print anything, I’ll…” Arthur’s voice wouldn’t keep coming; it clawed against his lips, fighting to stay inside.

“Blackmailing you, is he?”

Arthur nodded uncomfortably. “More or less.”

“Well, don’t you worry. At present, I have no reason to divulge the secret in print. And if I do, well, I can testify in court without perjury that you did not tell me. If that’s not good enough…I can assure you, I have lawyers—or ‘solicitors,’ I guess you’d call them—who will keep you safe.”

“He has plenty of money to buy the services of the best lawyers in New York, if not in the whole United States.” In addition to all the money he’d made in his new career, Arthur rather doubted that he’d managed to use up all the money he’d made as Brian Slade; he couldn’t have bought _that_ much cocaine.

Nathan only laughed. “You don’t know how it works, boy. Believe me, I may be a self-made man, but—”

“You were born into the upper middle class.” Arthur was not having any of that self-made man shite. Any rich man who claimed to be self-made was always just another Bounderby, lying to make himself sound more impressive or to feign a connection with the working class.

“An inheritance of a hundred thousand dollars is chump change to the ‘old money’ crowd,” Nathan said coldly. “As far as they’re concerned, I may as well have been born into poverty. And, _as I was saying_ , while I may be self-made, my _wife_ is decidedly not. She’s a scion of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in America. Between her connections and my money, I can hire lawyers who would turn up their noses and sniff at the _nouveau riche_ of the rock star. He can’t hire anyone who could defeat them in court. You’re safe so long as you stick with me.”

The implied threat that Arthur was going to be fending for himself if he ever quit working as a freelancer for Nathan’s publishing conglomerate was so obvious that it was almost tactile. He nodded. “So…do we know anything about when this woman went missing, or what she was workin’ on at the time?” Best to knuckle under straight away, since he didn’t have any real choice anyway.

“Her landlady reported her missing about a month ago,” Nathan said, leaning back. “Been waiting all that time for the police to step up, but since they refuse, I’m putting you on it. As to her story, I don’t know too much about it, because it was _her_ story, something she’d thought up. It was something to do with the thirtieth anniversary of the defection of Burt Gurney, but beyond that I really don’t know.”

Arthur frowned, looking down at the folder in his hands, trying to remember who in the world Burt Gurney was. “Oh…he was an actor, wasn’t he? I think I remember that being mentioned in a lecture on McCarthyism. Something about his defection letting Senator McCarthy’s hearings keep going even after McCarthy himself died.”

“That’s right. I suppose you don’t remember the hullaballoo when Gurney defected. His Communist cell had somehow managed to contact Russian high command, and a submarine surfaced just off the coast of Malibu to pick Gurney up. It was quite the ruckus. But you were probably too young to remember.”

“If this is the thirtieth anniversary, I wasn’t born until two years later.”

Nathan laughed. “Ah, you’re younger than I thought! Well, no matter. Fresh eyes and all that. I don’t know what Stella’s angle was on the defection, but she said she had something really great in mind with the article—something that was going to just blow everyone right outta the water, if you’ll forgive the pun.”

Arthur didn’t even see a pun to forgive. “Theoretically, it could be politically charged, then,” he said. “President Reynolds was part of the House Un-American Activities Committee from the time he first entered the House of Representatives in 1952, and worked closely with Senator McCarthy’s office. He’s always said what a great patriot McCarthy was for his long and valiant fight against Communism, all that rubbish.”

Nathan nodded. “Yes, I’m quite sure her story was going to ruffle a lot of feathers. But I don’t know anything more about it. What you’ve got there are the profiles of the primary people involved in the story, and information about where Stella lives. Unfortunately, as she’s a freelancer like yourself, there’s no web of co-workers to depend on here. You’ll have to see if her landlady knows who her friends and lovers are.”

“What about her family?”

“None I know of, so none at all!” Nathan laughed. “Between having a little chat with every freelancer who comes to work for me and running a basic background check on them, I’d know if her family was still around.” He paused, rubbing his chin. “All right, actually, I suppose it’s possible her brother is still alive. Her parents moved to New York when Stella was a little over a year old, but her older brother still remembered the old country and went back home about fifteen years ago. Stella hasn’t heard from him since; she thought he might have been locked up or killed.”

“What country would that be?”

“Hmm? Oh, didn’t I say? No, guess I didn’t!” Again, he laughed. There was certainly a reason ‘jovial’ was usually one of the words used to describe Jeffrey Nathan, but Arthur was finding his perpetual (and often inappropriate) laughter increasingly annoying. “Cuba, my boy, Cuba. Lucky for the Santos family that McCarthyism was finally dying out by the time Cuba went Communist, or they could have seen some trouble.”

Arthur nodded. With family ties to a Communist country, her investigation of a major case of an American defecting to the Soviet Union (possibly the only case, because who in their right mind would ever want to move to the USSR?) would certainly have set off alarm bells in all sorts of paranoid government agencies. But they would surely have arrested her, not disappeared her. Wouldn’t they?

Nathan seemed about to speak again when his secretary called him on the intercom to let him know his next appointment had arrived. Arthur was summarily shooed out of the office and sent to “work his magic” on the story.

If only he _had_ some magic to work!

He put the folder in his satchel and went straight back to the flat with it. If there was any chance the missing woman was missing because of the United States government, then he did _not_ want to be seen reading that file in public. Besides, he wasn’t sure Curt was over his fear of being alone yet. Well, fear might not have been the right word. Whatever it was that had caused him to start panicking and flashing back to the attack every time he was alone. Of course, Arthur hadn’t left him alone, because the Rats were there, trying to work on learning the new song Brian had written for Curt, but…if Curt’s mental state hadn’t improved enough to let him sing again, they might have left in another huff.

Arthur’s concerns turned out to be pointless, because all four of them were still in the sound booth, working on the new song. And they had left the door open, so Arthur could hear them complaining about the song at every turn. The orchestrations weren’t written for the right number of back-up artists, the key was all wrong, the music just wasn’t their style…they seemed to have endless complaints, but at least none of them were that Curt was failing to perform, so perhaps whatever his mental hang-up had been, he was over it now. Or maybe they just hadn’t gotten to that point in the practice. (Then again, if it was the same as the _sexual_ hang-up he’d been experiencing, then he was most certainly over it!)

Whatever the case was, Arthur went into the bedroom furthest from the sound booth and shut the door so he could read in peace. The first thing in the folder was the biography of Stella Santos which had come from the private detective Nathan had hired to do the background check on her. (Arthur shuddered at the thought of what his own background check must say. The fact that Nathan had so readily assumed he was blackmailable had spoken volumes already.) It didn’t really tell him all that much. She was about ten years older than Arthur was, and had come into considerable money when her parents were killed in an automobile accident in the early ‘70s, as the driver who killed them had been both drunk and rich, and had paid her massive amounts of money as reparations. She had no criminal record, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, had no history of substance abuse, had no past or present romantic relationships, and no friends outside a doll collecting group that met once a month. According to the detective, her primary recreational activity was going to estate sales. In short, she sounded like one of the most boring individuals imaginable. Her photograph showed an unremarkable woman, neither particularly attractive nor unattractive. Nothing in her profile suggested that she was likely to become the victim of violent crime under normal circumstances. (Beyond, of course, the muggings that were common on a daily basis in this city if you went to the wrong street after dark. Or in some places even in daylight.)

After the file on Stella Santos was the basic report on Burt Gurney. Born on a farm just outside Toledo, Ohio, at the end of World War I, he began taking singing and dancing lessons at an early age. Volunteering to join the United States Army following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he served in the European theatre on the eastern front lines, and was stationed in West Berlin for six months following the end of the war, until he was routinely discharged. Upon his return to the US, he went straight to California, where he was quickly discovered by casting agents of Capitol Pictures. He signed a ten year deal with Capitol, and began making motion pictures, in supporting roles at first, with his first lead coming only a few years later in 1950. He was hailed by critics and audiences alike as brilliant and charming, and film magazine write-ups on Gurney frequently warned that he would soon steal Gene Kelly’s crown as the king of the Hollywood musical. But in 1954, while in the midst of shooting _Navy Boys_ , Gurney suddenly disappeared after a Soviet submarine surfaced outside his Malibu home. Strangely, Capitol Pictures made no attempt to claim he had been abducted, instead admitting freely that their star had fooled them as well as their public, and that he had been the leader of the Communist cell that had been arrested at his house, a cell made up almost entirely of disgruntled screenwriters, many of whom worked for Capitol Pictures. The Soviet Union spent about ten years trying to use announcements from Burt Gurney to demoralise Americans, particularly those serving in the American military, while he was also making movies for Russian audiences. The announcements began to peter out in the early ‘60s, and the last of Gurney’s known Soviet movies was released in 1966. Since then, nothing further had been heard in America, and Gurney himself became an unknown, as all of the pictures in which he was the star had been destroyed by the studio within a year of his defection.

Not _all_ of them were truly lost, though. Arthur knew for a fact that he’d seen one, but it took him a good ten minutes to remember when and where. Eventually, he recalled that he’d seen it on French television—of all places!—the one time his family had taken a more exciting holiday than just to the seaside in Brighton or to the Lake District. He’d caught cold in Paris (just his luck!), and been stuck in their hotel room all day while his family went sight-seeing without him. He had been lucky enough to find a station that ran English-language movies with French subtitles instead of dubbed into French (possibly this was done exclusively to cater to all the English and American tourists), and one of them had been a Burt Gurney picture. He was a good-looking fellow, a decent actor, a very good dancer, and not a bad singer. It had been a pathetically stupid movie, of course, but most Hollywood musicals of the 1950s were, after all. It was possible, therefore, that someone in Europe might know more about Gurney. Arthur would have to ring up a few people back in London and see if—

What was he thinking? His story wasn’t about Burt Gurney—it was about the woman who had disappeared while writing a story about him! There was no reason to write her story as well as the one he’d been assigned. That was just stupid.

Turning his attention to the next piece of paper in the folder, Arthur found it was a brief write-up on Capitol Pictures. He didn’t really think that was terribly relevant—why would he care when it had been founded, who had owned it, etc.—except for the matter of what had happened to Capitol _following_ Gurney’s defection. They had proclaimed themselves the victims in the matter, and while movie-going audiences seemed to agree at first, the more Senator McCarthy and his blacklist focused in on Capitol, the more their films suffered at the box office. By the 1960s, it was primarily making television Westerns, and when those proved insufficient to support the studio, it folded, and its property, copyrights and film contracts were bought out by Universal Pictures.

The rest of the documents in the folder were the contact information for Stella Santos’ landlady, and the police reports that had been filed regarding her disappearance. It wasn’t a lot to go on, all the more so since someone as uninteresting as Miss Santos would hardly be mentioned in any news articles the way Brian Slade had been. Of course, there was much about the detective’s profile of Stella Santos that seemed off to Arthur. How could she have been approaching forty without ever having had a romantic relationship? Surely she _had_ engaged in romantic and sexual relations, and the detective just hadn’t been able to discover those relationships, or hadn’t recognised them for what they were. This doll society she belonged to was probably really the cover for a lesbian club. That made much more sense than that she was so unlucky in love that she had never even started a relationship.

Once he was through with the folder, Arthur rang up the landlady. “I’m a journalist investigating the disappearance of your tenant, Stella Santos,” he explained after getting her on the phone. “I was hopin’ I could speak to you about her, maybe see her apartment.”

“Of course! It’s about time _someone_ did something, and if the pigs won’t, a journalist will have to do!” The landlady had a slight accent, but too slight to identify.

“Um…yes…so, uh…I understand you’re the one who initially reported her missing?”

“That’s right. Stella’s never late with a rent payment, so when I didn’t get my check right on the dot, I knew something was up. Went into her apartment and found it empty and dusty, like she hadn’t been there in weeks. I called her boss, and he said she was working on a story and might have gone to California for more information, so he sent along a check to cover her rent for the month. But he didn’t know when she’d be back, anything like that. Well, let me tell you something about Stella Santos. She’s not the type to leave town without telling someone. She’s got plants that need watering, mail that needs fetching, all the usual stuff. I checked with her neighbours, and found out she was weeks overdue to come back from L.A.! That’s when I called the cops, but they said if she disappeared in L.A. then it was the L.A.P.D. that needed to handle it.”

“I see…”

“Stella’s been with me a long time, and I’m fond of the poor creature, so I even went ahead and called the pigs in L.A. and you know what they said?”

“I’m assuming they said they wouldn’t look for her…?”

“They said that she was a New Yorker, so it was the N.Y.P.D. who had to handle the case.” The landlady let out an extremely angry exclamation in a language Arthur couldn’t quite place; it might have been German, Dutch or Yiddish. None of them languages associated with groups Arthur expected to hear calling the police ‘pigs.’

“Did either set of police actually check if she had boarded her flight to or from Los Angeles?”

“I don’t know,” the landlady admitted. “They both called me back about an hour after I called them, so they might have.”

Arthur nodded, biting his lip. “It’s possible, then, that she boarded a flight, but never arrived at her destination. Or perhaps got to the airport, registered for the flight, and was prevented from physically boarding.”

“Think the pigs are responsible?” the landlady asked. “They hassle her every so often for being Cuban, you know.”

“I think if the police were responsible for her disappearance, they’d be less obvious in their unwillingness to investigate.” Crooked cops tended to cover their tracks slightly better than that. “But we can’t rule it out as a possibility, either. Do you know anything about the story she was workin’ on?”

“Only that it was about an old movie star. Can’t remember which one; she told me the name, but it didn’t mean anything to me.”

“So you don’t know anything about why she suggested the story, then.”

“Didn’t even know she could do that.”

“It’s one of the perks of being a freelance journalist,” Arthur assured her. “Did she have any regular visitors? Friends, lovers…?”

“No, Stella’s a quiet, introverted type. Only gets talkative when she’s working on a story or talking about one of her hobbies.”

Arthur laughed sadly. “I know the feeling.” Though in his case, he could also get all too chatty with lovers. Which often led to them becoming _ex_ -lovers. “Did she leave any paperwork about her article in her apartment? Or did the police take it away?”

“Oh, the pigs didn’t even bother to show up! There’s some file folders on her kitchen table. They might be research. Don’t know; I didn’t look inside them. If you want to come have a look at them, I’ll be glad to let you in.”

Arthur glanced at the clock; it was later than he had thought. “Perhaps I can come by first thing tomorrow morning,” he suggested. “I’d come today, but there’s a doctor’s appointment that can’t be missed.”

“Of course. Got to look after your health. Well, I’ll be here all day tomorrow, same as every day. You just buzz me at the front door, and I’ll let you in to see her apartment.”

“Thanks very much.”

After hanging up the phone, Arthur headed towards the sound booth, where the rather disorderly practice session was still going on. He stepped into the control booth, and poked his head through the open door into the recording booth. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but you’ll be late to your physical therapy appointment if you aren’t ready to go soon.”

“Ah, shit, is it that late already?” Curt sighed. “Man, Brian oughta be paying us overtime on trying to learn this piece of crap song.” The notion of Brian paying Curt for anything felt painfully wrong to Arthur, but hopefully he kept his wince on the inside.

“Get him to rewrite it again,” Kevin, the drummer, said. “He owes us all that much.”

“More than that!”

“Yeah, I may ask him to give it some more work,” Curt agreed. “You guys come on back tomorrow. We’ll work on something good instead of this shit.”

The Rats agreed, and were soon heading out of the flat, leaving their instruments behind in the sound booth. Surprisingly, Curt didn’t move, except to slump down on his stool. “Something wrong?” Arthur asked.

Curt shook his head. “It’s just…fuck, I don’t know. I hate physical therapy. But I hate not being able to use my hand properly, too.” Technically, the physical therapy was more for the muscles of his arm, following the bullet wound, multiple surgeries, bone replacement and month in a cast, but it did seem to be helping his hand regain functionality as well.

“It’s one or the other, love,” Arthur said, moving closer and setting a comforting hand on Curt’s shoulder. “You know that.”

“Yeah. I just don’t like it any.”

Arthur chuckled. “Maybe you need some incentive.”

Curt looked up at him suspiciously. “Like what?”

“A little reward for going and not causing the therapist any grief, no matter where she needs to touch you.” He got so vicious last time that she seemed to expect him to bite her, just like the wolves fans liked to say had raised him.

“Oh…? What’d you have in mind?” Curt asked, with an expectant grin.

“What would you like?” With that expression on his face, it was obviously going to be sexual, so there was no fear it would be something Arthur wouldn’t agree to instantly.

“How about a blowjob?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Curt’s grin widened, and he got to his feet. “It’s a deal. How about in the men’s room at the therapy place?”

“No.”

“Aw. Fine, the one in the subway.”

“No!”

Curt sighed. “That’s no fun. C’mon, you must’ve used a glory hole sometime.”

“Never.”

Curt grimaced, and headed out of the sound room. “Is that a _young_ thing, or an English thing, or just a spoiled-big-city thing?”

“Er…?” Arthur followed him, at a loss for what to say. “Possibly a little of all three?”

“But you _have_ done it in a public bathroom.”

“Of course. But only at a gay bar.”

“You gotta live more dangerously, man! The real thrill is getting away with it in the bathroom of someplace where straight guys go, too.”

“I could do without that kind of danger, thank you,” Arthur said, lingering at the door as Curt stepped inside his massive walk-in closet. “Do you want my help getting your shirt on?” Since the cast came off, Curt would only accept help getting dressed about half the time, and Arthur could never guess when he was going to accept it and when he was going to get testy and refuse it.

Curt was silent for nearly a minute, scanning the T-shirts hanging in the closet. “Guess it’ll be faster if you help,” he sighed. “Unless I can just wear this.”

“It’s got stains all over it and looks like it’s never been washed. I don’t think you want your photograph in that shirt getting in the tabloids.”

“They wouldn’t notice under the sling,” Curt insisted.

“They would.”

Curt let out yet another sigh. “Having to try and look decent when I leave home is the one downside of my career getting bumped back up like this.”

That and having been one of the victims of a murderous attack. “You’re just going to ‘ave to live with that,” Arthur said, even as he started helping Curt out of his disgusting shirt. “Let’s hurry up and get you ready so we can leave on time.”

***

It wasn’t quite as early by the time Arthur arrived at Stella Santos’s building as he would have liked. Curt had woken up with an enormous stiffy, and Arthur couldn’t have refused the request for sex even if he had wanted to. (And he couldn’t even _imagine_ wanting to refuse a request to have sex with Curt Wild!) But that had meant he needed a shower after, and it seemed like a thousand little things had cropped up after that, all delaying his departure by just a few minutes; between all that and a missed train, it was nearly half past ten by the time he reached his destination.

The building was a modest five storey brick-fronted affair, with air conditioning units visible in about half the windows. A metal plate beside the front door labelled the building as “The Talleyrand American House” though someone had spray-painted “un” in front of "American" in bright red paint.

Arthur had barely reached for the buzzer before the door was opened by a black woman about ten to fifteen years older than he was. She looked him up and down, her gaze especially focusing on his satchel. “Are you Arthur Stuart?” she asked. Her slight accent came through more clearly than over the telephone. He still couldn’t entirely place it, but was beginning to think it might be Afrikaans.

“Yes, that’s me,” he said. “You’re the one I spoke with on the phone?” Somehow, calling her the ‘landlady’ felt awkward at best. It was an awkward term in the first place, really…

“That I am,” she said, with a warm smile. “Sara Aarden, owner, manager, janitor, and every other job you can think of about the place.”

Arthur glanced over at the sign on the wall uncomfortably. “Ah…”

Sara followed his gaze, and her smile turned into a frown. “Already? I just cleaned it off yesterday.” She shook her head. “Somehow or other, I only ever get fellow immigrants as tenants,” she explained. “Evidently some folks don’t like that. It’s hard to get housing these days when you weren’t born in this country. But you must understand that.”

“Er…I suppose so…” He’d never had that particular problem. It was just when they found out he only liked men that they didn’t want him living under their roofs.

“Anyway, come on inside. I’ll show you Stella’s apartment.” As Arthur followed Sara inside, he saw a pleasant and clean hallway with floral wallpaper and no lift. “She’s up on the third floor,” Sara was saying, even as they started mounting the stairs, “and she’s always helping her neighbours carrying their groceries up. She’s in the corner apartment, next to a couple of little old ladies who moved here from Germany after the war was over.” She laughed. “They’ve been in this building a lot longer than I have!”

“How did you come to own the building?” Arthur asked, since investing in real estate was hardly a cheap or simple matter, especially for an immigrant.

“I was briefly married to the former owner,” she explained. “It wasn’t a long or happy marriage, but we were better friends after the divorce than before it, and he left me the building in his will.” She shrugged. “It was probably for the best; he was a good man, but a terrible landlord. I think that’s why he left this place to me; while we were married, I did most of his duties for him, and his tenants were happier than they had been while he was doing them. I’ve always had trouble finding work in this city, so this is the best arrangement for me as well as for the residents of the building.” She stopped at the top of the first flight of stairs. “I was afraid we’d be in for trouble when I reported Stella missing,” she said, lowering her voice and turning to look at Arthur confidentially. “One of the tenants of this floor has a drug problem, and a couple of the others get very jumpy when they see a cop car out on the street. If they’d taken Stella’s disappearance seriously and actually investigated it, they might have started blaming the other residents. But I know they had nothing to do with it.”

Arthur nodded. “I’m sure you’re right.” If she vanished on her way to or from Los Angeles, there was no reason to suspect her neighbours. Especially if anything about her story was going to ruffle government feathers.

Sara looked pleased by Arthur’s agreement, and headed on to the next flight of stairs. “Stella left all her plants with her neighbours, rather than asking them to come over, and had the post office holding her mail, so she knew she was going to be gone for a while. Only she told the ladies she’d be back in a week, and that was more than a month ago.”

“Was there any point—right before her departure, or maybe right before she was supposed to come back—when people were nosin’ around, asking questions about her, or trying to get into the building or her apartment?”

“No, nothing I was made aware of. You could try asking the other residents, but not much goes on here that I don’t know about. If anyone had been asking about her, I’m sure someone would have told me.”

Arthur nodded. Unfortunately, that leaned the suspicion decidedly in the direction of government agents. A common criminal would have needed to ask around before a kidnapping, but the government had other ways of obtaining information. The police would also likely have been poking around and… “What about anyone sittin’ in a car and just watching the door of the building?”

“Oh, we’d definitely have noticed _that_!” Sara laughed. “This isn’t really the type of neighbourhood where people just sit around in their cars all day.”

“That’s true.” It was still better than the one Arthur used to live in, though.

They reached Stella’s door, and Sara took out a ring full of keys. Each one—as far as Arthur could see—was carefully labelled with the room number it went to. She selected one, and unlocked the door, then glanced over at Arthur. “I hope you’re not one of those people who’s unsettled by dolls.”

“Dolls?” Arthur repeated, perplexed.

Sara opened the door, stepping aside so Arthur could go in. Through the open doorway, he could see a tidy little sitting room, filled with shelves of all sorts and sizes. Every surface in the room—even the top of the television—was covered with dolls. It looked like they had multiplied on their own in an attempt to take over the room. The sight was, frankly, a bit disconcerting. “Stella’s quite the collector,” Sara commented from beside him.

“Yes, I can see that,” Arthur agreed, welling up his courage to step inside. Aside from their ubiquity, there was nothing consistent about the dolls. They ranged from the old-fashioned china ones (always the first thing to be possessed in a horror movie) to cloth dolls to a row of Barbies (but not a Sindy in sight). There were odd-looking ones with gigantic round heads, baby dolls, a few anthropomorphic animal dolls, wooden dolls, dolls in costumes from all parts of the world, and even one in a chair that was the size of a real child. (That one, frankly, made Arthur’s heart skip a beat, as he thought it _was_ a child when he saw it out of the corner of his eye.)

“A lot of repair people get creeped out by this room,” Sara told him, following him in.

“How the bloody hell did she afford all these dolls on a journalist’s salary?” Even knowing nothing about dolls, Arthur could tell this had to have cost a small fortune. Those china ones were probably about a hundred years old, but they were in such good condition, with such elaborate clothing…

“She said she got rich when her parents were killed.” Arthur winced at the reminder; that had been in the file he’d been given. Sara shook her head. “Stella’s been building herself a new family ever since with these dolls. Every one of them has a name, and some of them she’s even given a personality. Keeps a list of them in a little notebook somewhere.”

“All right, that part’s a little creepy,” Arthur said, trying not to shudder. “Inanimate objects can’t have personalities.”

Sara shrugged. “Anyway, you can see there was nothing happened in here. If anyone had broken in, they’d have stolen her dolls. Some of them are worth an astonishing amount. Not to mention there isn’t a hair out of place.”

Arthur nodded. “Yes, that’s true.” Though he doubted any kidnappers would also be doll thieves. “You said she left behind some papers…?”

“Oh, yes, through here.” Sara led him to the side, into the flat’s small kitchen. Thankfully, there weren’t any dolls in there. There was a tiny table with one chair in the corner of the kitchen, and lying on the table were several file folders.

Arthur headed over to the table, and picked up the folders. Each was neatly labelled in surprisingly legible handwriting. They were on Burt Gurney, Capitol Pictures, and Anti-Communist Sentiment. “Yes, these are her story notes,” Arthur said, glancing inside the Gurney folder. He found hand-written notes, newspaper clippings, and pages torn from magazines. “Would it be all right if I took these folders to read over them at my own flat?” Or rather at Curt’s flat, since Arthur didn’t have one of his own right now.

“I can’t let you take any of Stella’s things, not even those,” Sara said. “I’m sure you understand.”

Only partially. “Of course. Suppose I’ll ‘ave to read them here and now, then.” Arthur suddenly wished he’d brought a camera so he wouldn’t have to copy out all the information by hand. “Unless you’ve got a photocopier?”

“Who owns their own photocopier?”

“Well, as a landlord…I don’t know. It would ‘ave been convenient, though.”

Sara laughed. “I don’t mind the dolls. I’ll just watch TV while you’re reading.”

Arthur nodded, and sat down at the table. Sara disappeared back into the main room, and he could soon hear the noise of the television, though it was just low enough that he couldn’t make out what she was watching.

Opening the Gurney folder, Arthur took out the top document. It was the same biography of Gurney that Arthur had been provided with. Well, that was useless. Next, he found a large clipping from the front page of the _Los Angeles Times_. The headline in massive font proclaimed “SOVIET SUBMARINE SURFACES OFF MALIBU” with a secondary headline reading “Burt Gurney defects to USSR, his Communist cell smashed!” The style of the article itself was surprisingly sensationalist coming from a major newspaper, but the facts were simple enough, and matched what had been said in the biography: Burt Gurney boarded the submarine as a defector to the Soviet Union, but his flashy departure allowed the police to capture his Communist cell, consisting of a handful of screenwriters and one elderly academic.

The next document was a page of Stella’s notes. She had tracked down the names of every one of Burt Gurney’s comrades, and their fate. All were convicted of high treason, but there was no attempt to seek the death penalty for any of them. In fact, Stella’s notes read “I think they were given leniency because of their sheer fucking incompetence.” They were, however, given life sentences without chance of parole. A few had died in prison—except the academic, who had a fatal heart attack before the trial was over—but most of them were still alive, having since been transferred to minimum security prisons across the country, either due to their age or their general and obvious harmlessness. According to Stella’s notes, the only thing these men had ever done before helping call that submarine was to write a few vaguely Socialistic sentiments into their banal movie scripts. Stella’s notes concluded that the submarine incident had to have been all Burt Gurney, “because the rest of these clowns couldn’t have found their own noses with both hands, let alone contacted a Soviet submarine.” Something about the sheer bluntness of Stella’s notes seemed out of sync with Sara’s description of her as such a sweet and kind person, but it wasn’t uncommon to be less kind in private than in public.

A few more old newspaper clippings followed, mostly following the development of the trials of the “Soviet Scribblers,” as the press had dubbed the Communist screenwriters. Reading through the articles, Arthur found it intriguing that it was hinted that the police had been heading to Burt Gurney’s house for some reason _other_ than the Soviet submarine, but that no one was willing to talk about what that other reason might have been. It was an interesting mystery, but less so than the mystery of how in the world Stella Santos had gotten her hands on so many thirty-year-old newspapers.

That mystery paled instantly as Arthur picked up the next thing in the folder. It was a mimeograph which at first he took for a few pages out of a play, or perhaps a screenplay, given the Hollywood nature of the story Stella had been working on. Then he noticed what Stella had written at the top of the first page. “Partial transcript of interrogation of director Laurence Laurentz,” it read. “Date unknown; perhaps a week after the defection, not more than two weeks. Interrogators unknown; probably FBI. Rest of interrogation unavailable.”

How in the world had she managed to get her hands on secret documents from a government intelligence agency? If Arthur managed to find her (and she was still alive), he was going to _have_ to ask how she had done that. It was a skill every journalist ought to have in the age of Reynolds…

Once he was over the surprise of what the original document was, he returned his attention to the mimeographs themselves. Laurence Laurentz seemed an odd person to end up being interrogated over the defection of Burt Gurney; while it was true they both worked for Capitol Pictures, they had surely never worked together, and might not have ever even met, considering Laurentz had made deep dramas and polite high society comedies, while Gurney had made musicals. Perhaps the FBI—or whoever it was—had been interrogating everyone of note at Capitol Pictures, but what could they possibly have learned from someone so remote from the subject at hand?

> _Just fess up, and this will all go easier on you. Tell us how long Gurney was planning this._
> 
> Suspect: I cannot ‘fess up’ to a crime you have conjured out of thin air, and I cannot tell you something I do not know. This is all quite pointless.
> 
> _Don’t lie to me, you limey cocksucker!_
> 
> (Suspect laughs.) Suspect: Are you expecting me to be offended? Disgusted into cooperating with your ludicrous demands? You will have to accuse me of dallying with women, if you want that reaction.

Given some old interview footage Arthur had seen of Laurentz, he was not the least bit surprised to learn that the man was gay, but it was a little surprising to read about a gay man in the 1950s being so calm at the realisation that others knew his secret. 1954 was the height of the blacklist, after all, and there had always been the threat that it might be expanded to include ‘crimes’ other than Communist leanings.

> _How can you claim your little boyfriend never once told you of his plans?!_
> 
> Suspect: If you were important enough to have a lover half your age, you would understand that talking rarely plays a role in such relationships.

Arthur’s head was spinning, and if he hadn’t been seated already, he would have needed to sit down. So Burt Gurney was also gay? How had _that_ not been mentioned in any of the text he’d read so far on this story? But the Soviet Union—as far as Arthur knew—was even more opposed to homosexuality than America was. Was that why no one had heard from Burt Gurney in nearly twenty years?

He scanned the rest of the interrogation quickly, but didn’t see anything else of note. Had Stella’s story in some way involved Gurney’s sexuality? Was that why this transcript was in her story notes?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically, what Arthur referred to as "old-fashioned china" dolls are actually bisque-headed dolls with ball-jointed composition bodies (or possibly kid leather bodies), circa 1880s-1920s. But Arthur not being a doll person, it would have felt wrong to call them bisque-headed dolls, since most people don't distinguish between glazed china and unglazed bisque. His guess about their age is based on the style of their clothing, because he doesn't know any better.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to apologize for the dialog from the "Hail, Caesar!" cast. I tried as hard as I could, but I just couldn't capture quite the right flavor for the speech patterns of Laurence Laurentz and Hobie Doyle. (That was, in fact, why I had bought the screenplay, to be able to better study their speech, particularly Hobie's accent.) I hope you can forgive me for this failure.

**Hollywood, 1954**

Laurence was not permitted to get even halfway back to his soundstage before some under-washed errand boy ran up and panted the message at him that Eddie Mannix wanted to see him in his office right away. But of _course_ he did! Heaven forefend that he manage to shoot even one take today! There was no chance of successfully filming a whole scene—not while that benighted little fool was expected to both speak _and_ use props at the same time—but if they could at least run through the scene a few times, maybe there would be some hope of getting through it tomorrow.

But no, as soon as those vile miscreants deposited him at the studio gates, here he was, dragged away once more to waste his valuable time! He couldn’t help rubbing at his wrists as he walked towards Eddie Mannix’s office. They still chafed from the handcuffs. Of all the—why had they bothered to handcuff him in the first place? Did he look dangerous to them? Were they frightened of someone they themselves referred to as an “over-the-hill milquetoast”? Such petty intimidation tactics!

The entire human race was belittled by having such people in it. Wasn’t there a war going on anywhere that they could go get themselves blown up in?

When he finally arrived in Mannix’s office, Laurence was surprised to find that Ärne Seslum was there, seated in one of two chairs facing Mannix’s desk. He didn’t look surprised to see Laurence arrive.

“Perfect timing,” Mannix said, smiling at him. It wasn’t an inviting smile, not in the least. It never was. “Please, have a seat. Do you want anything to drink? I can send Natalie to fetch anything you need.” At least he did try to be accommodating.

“I believe I could do with a good cup of tea,” Laurence admitted, as he sat down. Not that there was a good cup of tea to be found anywhere in this city other than in his own kitchen, of course. And the only reason there was good tea to be found _there_ was that he had tea leaves shipped straight to him from London. This miserable country had no concept of the finer things in life.

Mannix turned on the intercom on his desk. “Natalie, could you go and get some tea for Mr. Laurentz? And ask the canteen to provide a little something to go with it.” The intercom produced the tinny sound of his secretary agreeing to get right on it, then Mannix turned his attention towards Laurence. “I hope you’re…all right,” he said, awkwardly eying Laurence’s wrists.

“The primary injury is to pride only,” Laurence assured him. “But I’ve lost a great deal of time already today.”

“Yes, of course, I know that, but I’ve been thinking. Tell me, how is _Merrily We Dance_ progressing?”

Laurence glanced over at Seslum. He hated the idea of airing his own inability to conquer one bad actor in front of another director…

“It’s all right,” Mannix insisted. “Ärne understands—he won’t spread a word of this to anyone. It’ll be completely confidential, just the three of us. Isn’t that right, Ärne?”

“Yah, yah, not a word.”

“We’re at least two weeks behind schedule,” Laurence admitted, with a grimace.

“But you’ve barely been filming for a week.”

“I am all too well aware of that,” Laurence said, shaking his head. “At this rate, we shan’t be finished by the end of the year!”

Mannix nodded, looking grim. “Yes, I do understand. This is—it’s all proving very trying, very time-consuming. Trying to cajole Hobie into giving such a different performance than he’s used to.”

“At this point, I should be satisfied if he simply learnt to speak English,” Laurence said, trying to contain the worst of his spite. How had such an illiterate cretin ever managed to become a film star in the first place? And what had Laurence ever done to deserve having him thrust upon him like this?

“I’ve been looking over Hobie’s previous pictures,” Mannix said.

“My sympathies.”

“And I think I may have hit on a solution to your problem. If you don’t object to a suggestion?”

“If you know some way to contrive it that Hobie Doyle should behave like a human being instead of an animal, I welcome it gladly,” Laurence assured him. “Hypnosis, perhaps? Let some voodoo witch doctor control him with strings like a puppet? Or perhaps possession by the ghost of a famed actor?” That would certainly be the ideal solution. After all, the boy was unquestionably quite attractive, and looked delightful in his costume. Until he opened his mouth.

Mannix shook his head, laughing. “I’ve noticed that in his previous pictures, Hobie’s always been a bit stiff in the scenes where he’s talking to other people, but he opens up and becomes much more comfortable when he’s singing. And since Ärne here has had his picture temporarily shut down, what do you say to letting him co-direct, and make _Merrily We Dance_ into a musical?”

The idea of such a powerful Broadway drama turning into a trite Hollywood musical set veins to throbbing on the sides of Laurence’s face…and yet, he could hardly imagine it being a worse outcome than where the film was heading just at the moment. “It would require a great deal of re-writing.”

“Of course. I’ve got the best of our remaining screenwriters already working on it.”

Remaining screenwriters. The allusion to Burt’s betrayal cut far more deeply than any insinuation that Laurence could not manage to mould a single talentless buffoon into a moderately passable thespian. “And you will need to get the permission of the playwright.”

“Our lawyers checked the contract, and we’ve got the right to change the play as we see fit, but I’ll contact him if that will make you feel better about it.”

Laurence frowned, and shook his head. “No, no, don’t bother. There’s no point. You can’t make a musical with Hobie Doyle in the lead.”

“No, no, we can make it, you will see,” Seslum insisted. “He is no Burt Gurney, but he sings nice enough. He will do the job fine.”

Laurence smiled tightly. Seslum, evidently, was one of the few people at the studio who _didn’t_ know just why Laurence had never married, or at least didn’t know why he had just spent all morning being interrogated like a common hoodlum. “You don’t understand what I mean. The lead of a musical must be able to dance. But Hobie Doyle can barely even walk; dancing is utterly out of the question.” Which was another headache yet to come, considering the ballroom scene at the climax of the picture.

“It’s all right, we’ll have the choreographer style the dances to suit him,” Mannix insisted. “The others can dance around him while he stands still.”

“We can use the cut-away shots,” Seslum said. “Have someone else dance, let the audience think it’s Hobie, yah?”

“That, too,” Mannix agreed. “What do you think, Laurence? Are you willing to give it a try?”

Laurence sighed. “I suppose there’s no chance you’ll agree to recast?” The temporary shut-down while another leading man was procured would be far less expensive than the cost of going months too long in the process of re-writing every single scene as it was shot in order to find lines simplistic enough for Hobie to be able to articulate them with his wooden tongue.

“This came from above,” Mannix said, shaking his head. “We’ll all lose our jobs if we contradict Mr. Schenk’s casting decisions.”

“Then I have very little choice.” At least this way if the film turned out terribly, it would be blamed on the concession to Ärne Seslum’s sudden loss of star, rather than on Laurence’s inability to coax a proper performance out of Hobie Doyle.

“Excellent! Ärne, you and your choreographer head over to the set, start talking to the cast and crew. Explain the situation,” Mannix said, getting to his feet.

Seslum rose also, and headed out of the office.

“Shouldn’t _I_ be the one to tell them?” Laurence asked, rising as well. “Unless you’re removing me from the picture altogether.” At this stage, he might actually prefer that.

“I wanted to have a few words with you in private,” Mannix said, his voice turning even more serious than usual. That hardly boded well, but it did not come as a surprise; Mannix surely would not have bothered sending for refreshments if the meeting was to be so brief.

Laurence waited until the door was shut behind Seslum to release his breath. “What is it?” If it was to be a lecture on his choice of sexual partners endangering the studio…

“Well, first, are you sure you’re all right? You look like they were treating you pretty rough.” Mannix resumed his seat as he spoke, an expression of concern on his face.

Laurence sighed, sitting down again. “They limited their abuse to words. And handcuffs.” He shook his head. “I haven’t been physically injured.” No doubt they didn’t want to leave evidence of their actions. They had to have been trespassing into illegality.

Mannix nodded, but had barely opened his mouth when the door to his office opened again, and his secretary came in with a tray containing a teapot, tea cup, and a plate of finger sandwiches. “I’m sorry it took so long, Mr. Mannix,” she said, setting the tray down on his desk. “The chef wanted to provide Mr. Laurentz’s favourite.”

“It’s all right, Natalie. Thanks for fetching that for us.” While there was often much lacking in Mannix’s presentation of himself, Laurence really couldn’t fault him for the way he treated his subordinates.

While the secretary left again, Laurence poured himself a cup. It was the studio’s usual mediocre tea, but at the moment it seemed near heavenly. Mannix watched him silently until he set the cup down again. “As I was saying,” he went on, “if you need a lawyer, let me know. You’re very valuable to the studio; we’ll provide the best lawyer in L.A.”

“I do appreciate your concern, but I don’t believe it will be necessary. I was eventually able to prevail upon them that my personal relations with Burt did not make me a Communist, or even aware of his secret political views.” While it wasn’t true that he and Burt had never spent much time talking—just the opposite, in fact!—they had never discussed politics. Literature, psychology, dogs—especially dogs—but never politics or social theory. “Absurd to suspect me of all people of Communist leanings.”

“Exactly so. But…”

Laurence looked at Mannix piercingly as his voice trailed off. “Am I to be expected to obey studio mandates regarding my personal life now?” he asked. “Are my tastes now considered a hazard to business?” He couldn’t bring himself to ask the third question, if he would be expected to feign a public romance with a woman the way Burt once had been. Laurence suspected that had been when Burt decided to turn his back on everything that had built up the fine lifestyle he loved so much. He had certainly been fuming about it in private, raging against the system that expected him to parade about town with his arm around a particularly vapid young starlet, pretending to romance her. The hushed gossip around the studio lot was that she had found out the truth about Burt’s sexual tastes from someone in wardrobe, but Laurence had always suspected that Burt told her himself, just so she would break off the false relationship.

“No, that’s not—I think it would do everyone some good if you could…be even more discreet about it in the future, but no one’s asking you to change.”

“I am delighted to hear that.” As he had absolutely no intention of ever changing.

Mannix hesitated a moment. It was clear from his face that he had something else he wanted to say, but for some reason he wasn’t saying it.

“If that is all, I would like to return to my set now.”

“Yes, no, that’s not all. It’s about Hobie Doyle.”

“Good God, is there something more to say about him?” The less said, the better, in Laurence’s opinion.

“I’ll keep it brief. I understand it’s hard for you to work with him. He’s not accustomed to what you need him to do. Maybe he really can’t do it as well as we’d all like.” From the look on Mannix’s face, saying that was akin to dragging him across a bed of hot coals. “But you should show him a little gratitude.”

“Gratitude?” Laurence repeated, rising to his feet. “For what? For degrading my film—the entire film industry?”

Mannix shook his head. “If it weren’t for Hobie Doyle, some of the oldest of your dirty laundry would have been aired across the front page of every newspaper in town, maybe in the country.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Baird Whitlock.”

Laurence sank slowly back into the chair. “What do you mean?”

“If Hobie hadn’t found Baird before the police arrived at Burt Gurney’s house, there would have been no way of keeping the story out of the police reports and from there out of the newspapers. Because Baird was already gone, the police wrote off the entire tale as a ruse created by the Communists to distract from their own crimes.”

“I don’t understand. What would Baird Whitlock have been doing with a Communist cell?” The man was an ignorant dolt. There was no chance he would ever understand Karl Marx. Though perhaps his ignorance would actually make Communism seem more appealing, since he wouldn’t be able to perceive its shortcomings.

“They had kidnapped him. Planned on using blackmail to keep him from revealing their identities. But Hobie found him first, got him out of there before the police arrived.”

Blackmail. Baird was really that ashamed of it? It was true that he had often snubbed Laurence since then at social gatherings, but… “How did they…” There was no point in finishing the question. Burt must have told them. An even more complete betrayal. A _personal_ betrayal. Perhaps he had been tired of Laurence after all, and simply hadn’t bothered to say so, knowing he would soon be leaving the country forever. “But what was Hobie Doyle doing at Burt’s house?” That isolated house which had afforded them so much sweet privacy was miles from any place Hobie Doyle would be likely to frequent.

“He’d seen Burt with the ransom money, followed him back there.” Mannix laughed, shaking his head. “If Mr. Schenk hadn’t insisted on putting Hobie into your leading role, who knows how it might have turned out. We only know about the submarine because the police were already on their way to Burt’s house. If Hobie hadn’t been here that day, we would probably be sitting here right now, biting our nails as we awaited a ransom note to explain Burt Gurney’s disappearance.”

Unfortunately, that made a terrible sense to Laurence. It was unlike Burt to embark on such a massive endeavour without a thoroughly laid out plan. Arranging a kidnapping to cover his own defection seemed all too true to his way of thinking. And the blackmail meant that even if the submarine had never come, and Burt and his Communist accomplices had only benefited to the extent of whatever vast amount Capitol Pictures was willing to pay to release their most profitable star, there would have been no risk to Burt, because Baird couldn’t tell anyone what he had seen and where he had seen it, unless he was willing to let the world find out about that one little lapse in Laurence’s personal code of ethics.

What a vile mind it turned out Burt really had behind that sweet face!

“You all right?”

The question woke Laurence from his mental torpor, and made him realise just how long he had been sitting there in silence. “Yes, I—I’m quite all right, thank you.” He used reaching for a sandwich as an excuse to take and release several deep breaths. “I am perhaps more shaken by this morning’s encounter than I previously thought.”

“Understandable. You just take your time. I can leave you alone, if you’d like.”

“I shan’t be more than a minute or two.” He had no stomach for food, but forced himself to nibble on the sandwich in his hand. “Those men must have told the studio what branch of the government they represented,” he said, after he had swallowed, “but they did not tell me.”

“To be honest, they didn’t,” Mannix admitted. “They arrived with the local police, who said they were here to officially investigate the incident.”

“So they might be FBI, CIA, or some Congressman's personal lackeys.”

“Afraid so.”

Laurence sighed, wondering what Burt would think when he heard the news if the entire studio ended up being put on the blacklist because of his defection. Laurence would be all right, of course; at this point, he could safely return home to England and get a job at Ealing, or perhaps direct for the stage on the West End. And yet, he would prefer to stay where he was. American movies reached a much more vast audience, and they were in sore need of quality productions!

“Don’t you worry,” Mannix said, with that awful attempt at a smile again. “No one here was involved. The authorities know that. We’ll be fine.”

“I do hope so,” Laurence agreed, setting down the rest of his sandwich as well as his cup. “But I must get back to the set. They have been too long without me as it is.”

Mannix didn’t attempt to detain him further, and Laurence was soon making his way across the lot to the soundstage where Ärne Seslum and his choreographer were insinuating themselves into _Merrily We Dance_. At least, Laurence reflected with a grim inward chuckle, the title would now make sense even to the most dim-witted of movie-goers.

When he arrived at the soundstage door, Laurence hesitated for a moment before going in. What would he find on the other side of the door? Some inane tap dance number being demonstrated by whichever choreographer had been given the misfortune of working with Seslum this time around? Seslum abusing the English language as he tried to engage the enthusiasm of a cast and crew who were already sick to dying from its lack, thanks to having to work with Hobie Doyle? Or perhaps it would resemble a chaotic choir practice, with every voice singing in an off-key cacophony…

The sight that did greet his eyes was unlike any of Laurence’s conjectures. Most of the cast and crew were on the soundstage, seated on the furniture or leaning on the more stable elements of the set itself, while Ärne Seslum stood near the camera, facing them. In between the set and the Swede, however, stood Hobie Doyle, the look of an over-stimulated guard dog on his face, and one hand held at his side, fingers flexing, as if he was preparing to draw the gun he would be wearing there in all his other pictures. At the sound of the soundstage door closing again, Hobie glanced over, and suddenly dropped his intimidating posture to hurry over towards Laurence.

“I’m so glad you’re back!” he exclaimed. “You gotta do somethin’! These here cowpokes are tryin’ to rustle away your job! I tol’ them we ain’t gonna stand for it, but they ain’t leavin’, and—”

Despite himself, Laurence laughed. It was the first true laugh he had had since setting eyes on Hobie. “Calm yourself, Hobie,” he said, setting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “They aren’t attempting to steal anything from me or anyone else. Eddie Mannix asked Ärne Seslum and his crew to help us with this picture.”

“But…”

“He thought you might be more at ease if you did more singing and less talking.”

A look of comprehension slowly dawned across Hobie’s face, leaving in its wake a surprisingly charming smile. “Wull, tha’s true,” he admitted, “I might at that. But you don’t need another director jest for that. Isn’t this _your_ picture?”

“I’ve never directed a musical before.” Nor did he have any intention of starting now. “And since Ärne Seslum’s current picture has been indefinitely delayed, this is a kindness to him. A charity, if you will.”

“Oh! Well, all right then, if you’re okay with it, I guess I am, too.”

“Good.” One last pat on the shoulder, and Laurence withdrew his hand again. “Make sure you obey Ärne Seslum’s instructions just as you would my own.” Maybe Seslum’s instructions would occasionally include things Hobie was actually capable of doing.

“Yassir, I will.” There was a pathetic needfulness in Hobie’s eyes; a poor, bedraggled mutt begging food and shelter from a stranger.

“I do appreciate your concern—your loyalty, dear boy.”

The needfulness was wiped away from within by the bright light of a smile. The sense of it was so familiar to Laurence from his boyhood, the look of joy and gratitude that his favourite dog used to give him every time they played together. He half expected to see a wagging tail attached to Hobie’s posterior as he turned and walked back to the set.

By the time Laurence followed him over, Seslum was halfway through his speech to the cast and crew, explaining about the changes to the picture. He, of course, gave only the temporary death of _Navy Boys_ as an explanation as to why the studio had decided to change _Merrily We Dance_ into a musical, but everyone kept casting glances at Hobie that seemed to say that they knew the real reason for the change. Hobie himself was plainly oblivious, however, which was perhaps for the best. Once the speech was over, Seslum turned to Laurence and asked which scene they were working on today, as he had already read the script, and had some idea of how they planned to work the changes.

“The bridge game at the end of Act I,” Laurence told him. It was a pivotal scene, but based on Hobie’s work up until now, he knew better than to think that Hobie could play cards and speak at the same time.

“Yah, yah, excellent, that is a simple scene,” Seslum said, nodding.

“Simple? It’s of crucial emotional impact, when Monty learns that—”

“Simple to _film_ ,” Seslum interrupted. “No dancing.”

“Ah. Yes, I suppose it would be difficult for them to dance and play cards at the same time.” Thankfully.

“While you’re working with the cast for this scene, why don’t I speak to the rest of the cast elsewhere,” a familiar voice suggested, as the choreographer stepped out of the shadows that had been hiding him. So it was Charles this time? He didn’t so much as cast a glance at Laurence. Some gratitude that was, after Laurence was the one who had first gotten him hired at this studio! Or did he, like Baird, resent what had passed between them? That would be appalling if he did, considering he was the one who had approached Laurence; he shouldn’t have even been at that sort of party if he was going to resent it later. “I’d like to know how many of them can dance.”

“Yah, yah, you do that,” Seslum agreed, nodding. “It is decided!”

While most of the cast began to rise from their places, Joan waved her hand to get Charles’ attention. “I’m needed for this scene,” she said, “but I’m trained in classical dance—ballet and ballroom both.”

“And you’re…who do you play?” Charles asked.

“Deirdre.”

“And you know ballet? That could be very useful indeed! Thanks for letting me know.” Charles smiled at her graciously, and began leading the cast away.

While they were making their exodus, Hobie hurried over to Laurence, a worried look on his face. “Uh, Laurence, I…I cain’t dance,” he said, shaking his head. “Not so much as a do-si-do. Nobody said nothin’ about dancin’ in this here pitcher.”

Laurence somehow managed to keep from wincing at the implication that square dances might be inserted into high drama. “We’re aware of that, Hobie. Don’t worry. Charles is a very talented choreographer. He won’t ask you to do anything you aren't capable of.”

Hobie nodded, but looked worried. “I kin do handstands, and jumps, but I don’t thank I could do them in this suit. It’s too tight.”

“Don’t worry, my dear boy, you won’t be expected to perform any gymnastics. Monty is too eaten away by his fears over Allegra’s disappearance with Biff to engage in such light-hearted antics as dancing, don’t you see?”

A look of utter perplexity crossed Hobie’s face, then he nodded. “Right. He’s hawnted by Biff’s grip…”

Laurence breathed deeply, begging God for the strength to carry on in the face of this sheer stupidity. This was a test, a trial. Once he was through it something good was sure to come along to reward him. “Precisely,” he forced himself to say. “And that is why his distraction is causing him to play such a poor hand of bridge.”

Hobie nodded again, then bit his lip. “Er, I don’t rightly know how it’s played…”

“It’s quite a simple game, really. Everything you need to know is in the script.”

“I couldn’t make head ner tail of it,” Hobie insisted. “They’re all layin’ cards on the table willy-nilly, and no one seems to care what cards he’s got in his hand, and—”

“Yah, we are ready over here, Hobie Doyle!” Seslum shouted, thankfully reprieving Laurence from any attempt at explaining the rules of bridge. “Seat yourself there and we go over the scene, yah?”

“Yassir.” Obediently, Hobie trotted over and took his seat opposite Joan.

“In this scene, we will have song, instead of talking, yah? All singing the same tune, in sequence, one after the other.”

“A round-robin, you mean?” Annette asked. “Like with _Row, Row, Row Your Boat_?”

“Yah, yah, that is good one,” Seslum agreed. “We sing that one to practice, yah? In final movie, it will be a new song, but for practice, one everyone knows. To feel the scene.”

Hobie frowned. “If we’re playin’ a game about bridges, why not sing a song about bridges?” he asked. “It’d match better.”

The rest of the cast grimaced, and Harold seemed about to light into Hobie—he had less patience than Joan, and had spent nearly as much time attempting to engage in dialog with Hobie’s mutilation of Monty—but Seslum suddenly clapped his hands once. “That is good idea!” he exclaimed. “Good. We sing _London Bridge_ instead, yah? Use the tune in the final picture.”

No one seemed to know how to react to that terrible idea, except Hobie, who smiled pleasantly.

“How, precisely, do you want this to work?” Joan asked. “In the original scene, the interplay between our characters—the push and pull of the dialog—was crucial to teasing out the truth of Monty’s fears, Ian’s complicity and Angela’s schemes. How will that ever work if we’re all singing at once?”

“You each have different words to sing, in final picture,” Seslum explained. “It is…it is singing your thoughts aloud, yah? Very common in musical pictures.”

Laurence had to brace himself against a nearby camera. This film was going to sink even lower than he had expected.

Perhaps this entire thing had been a scheme to ruin him. _Merrily We Dance_ would not survive Hobie Doyle’s insertion into the picture. And how could Laurence Laurentz continue to make motion pictures after he had his name placed upon such an abomination?

Hobie Doyle would be the end of his career.

***

**New York City, 1984**

“Say, how much longer are you going to be at this?” Sara’s voice suddenly asked from behind Arthur, as he was just starting to read the next page in the file, a biographical article about Laurence Laurentz, written sometime in the 1960s. (The only thing about it that was even vaguely interesting was the photograph they printed of Laurentz at the time of his directorial debut, when he was in his thirties and an absolute knock-out.)

“I’m afraid it’ll be a long while yet,” Arthur told her, sighing as he turned to look at her. “I’m not even halfway through the first of these files.”

She scowled, and crossed her arms. “I have duties to attend to; I can’t sit in here all day while you read.”

“I do understand that, but—”

Sara suddenly snapped her fingers. “I have it! Wait there!” She hastened to the doorway out of the kitchen, where a telephone was mounted on the wall. She dialled it quickly, and was soon speaking to someone on the other end. “Jess, it’s Sara. Could you do me a little favour?” She laughed. “No, no, nothing like that. It’s one of my tenants. She’s…well…not here, and someone needs some of the papers she left behind. I was hoping you could photocopy them for us.” A pause. “Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, exactly. You don’t mind, do you?” A delighted smile. “See, that’s why you’re the best!” She hung up the phone, then turned to Arthur. “So, my lawyer’s office isn’t too far from here. She’s sending one of her subordinates to pick up those files and copy them for you.”

“That’d be great.” Arthur was getting very tired of sitting on that rather uncomfortable little chair. Stella was plainly much shorter than he was. “In the mean time, I’ll ‘ave a look around the flat, if that’s all right?”

“Of course,” Sara agreed.

Arthur stood up at last, and indulged in a good stretch before leaving that sheltered kitchen and braving the glass-eyed gaze of several dozen dolls. The problem with this situation was that—unlike with the usual investigations he had to perform in pursuing a story—he had absolutely no idea what he should be looking for. This was not a job for a journalist; this was a job for the police. But if the police wouldn’t do it…

Well, the first thing to was probably to look for the most obvious indicators. “Which one’s the bedroom?” he asked, glancing at Sara. There were three doors leading off the main room. He assumed one of them was a closet, but…

“Bedroom, bathroom, closet,” Sara said, pointing to the three doors in turn.

Arthur headed through the door to the bedroom, only to find that it, too, was overflowing with dolls. To the extent that there were half a dozen floppy cloth ones sitting in the centre of the bed, between the pillows. (What did she do with them when she went to sleep?) The room had the typical accoutrements that would be found in any bedroom—bed, bureau, closet—and a few more typical of his and Stella’s profession—desk with computer—as well as the rather bizarre sight of a massive plastic dollhouse in such a mod style that Arthur assumed it had to date to the late ‘60s. As in the front room, everything was covered in dolls; even the closet door was covered in them, suspended in an over-the-door contraption that was probably intended to hold shoes.

Trying to ignore the dolls (and Sara quietly laughing at him from the doorway), Arthur headed to the bureau and began checking the drawers. They seemed a logical place that Stella might have stashed her passport, and/or where she might have hidden more sensitive material gathered in pursuit of her story, and they’d be a good indicator if she had actually packed clothing for a trip. The top drawer contained mostly jewellery, hair accessories, combs and other things that normal people would put on top of the dresser, but since Stella had given over the top of her dresser to old wooden (or something wood-like, at any rate) dolls of cartoon characters, she had to keep all those necessities inside the dresser. The second two drawers were clothing of various sorts, neither drawer full.

As Arthur opened the fourth drawer, he heard Sara’s voice from behind him. “You’re not looking for her underwear, are you?”

Arthur laughed. He had no idea that, at this point, there were still people in this city who didn’t know his face. Seemed like whenever he went anywhere there was always some random stranger who stopped him on the street to ask about Curt. “My boyfriend would be quite shocked if I was,” he said.

“Oh?” The sound of Sara sitting on the bed. “I thought gay men tried to hide their true selves away. Especially these days.”

“I used to,” Arthur admitted, shutting the drawer again. “Until a bit over a month ago.” He opened the bottom drawer, and found a small shoe box in beside neatly paired-off socks.

“Did something happen?”

Arthur turned away from the tantalising shoe box to look at Sara in disbelief. “You really don’t know?”

“Um…?”

“The shooting in Central Park? At the rock festival?”

“Oh, that.” Sara nodded. “At first, I thought that was why the pigs didn’t pay any attention when I reported Stella missing.” She bit her lip. “It was something about a gay singer or…something?”

Arthur sighed, and shook his head, turning back to the bureau. “It was more complicated than that. But yeah, the singer on stage at the time of the shooting was gay. And he and I…well, that’s complicated, too.” Outside of snippy comments, it didn’t feel right to call Curt his boyfriend. Not only because Curt was ten years older than he was. More because he wasn’t entirely sure Curt was serious about him; sure, he hadn’t gotten kicked out when Curt’s cast came off, but Curt still needed a bit of help about the flat while he had to keep it in a sling most of the time. “But the tabloids are always running pictures of us out together, even if we’re not doin’ anything romantic.” There was still the occasional shot of them just walking to the salon where Curt always got his hair trimmed and bleached; at this point, somehow Arthur had gotten talked into having his own hair cut there, too, despite how embarrassing that was.

“I don’t read tabloids. Don’t really read regular newspapers, either.”

Even though he wasn’t working for a newspaper anymore, Arthur still felt personally betrayed every time he heard those words. Trying to distract himself from that feeling, he removed the lid from the shoe box, and found that it was full of papers. (He had been half afraid of finding it filled with tiny dolls.) He picked up the box and took it over to the desk to sit down and examine its contents. He had barely gotten settled when someone knocked on the door to the flat.

“That’ll be Jess’s assistant,” Sara said, getting up off the bed again. “Don’t move a muscle while I’m gone.” With that, she hurried out of the room to get the door.

Did she really think he was going to steal Stella’s things? Admittedly, there _had_ been a few instances in the past when Arthur had illegally taken paperwork for a story, but he’d almost always returned it again when he was done with it, before the owners even noticed it was gone. And he really doubted there was anything in Stella’s papers that he needed that badly.

There certainly wasn’t anything like that in the box. He’d hoped to find travel plans, unused airline tickets, her passport, anything to prove that she hadn’t actually left New York after all, but there was nothing like that in the shoe box. It was mostly old letters on top, with photographs underneath. The letters were in Spanish, so Arthur could only understand the odd word or two with a strong English cognate, but between those few words and the names signed at the end of each letter—not to mention the dates at the top—they seemed to be letters from Stella’s parents, some to each other and the rest to Stella and her brother. The photos also seemed to be family photos of Stella with her now-deceased parents. All very sweet and tragic, but not helpful to Arthur’s story. Unless, of course, he found evidence that Stella had been killed, in which case one of those photos of her as a happy child would add an extra level of poignancy to the article. (But if that turned out to be the case, he could come get the photos at the same time that he gave Sara the unfortunate news.)

“Okay, she’ll be back as soon as she can with the copies,” Sara announced, returning to the room. “There’s a lot of paper there, though, so it may take a while.”

“I’d think so,” Arthur agreed, getting up again. It would probably take a lot longer than it had taken for Sara to get tired of waiting while he read, considering he had only been here about half an hour at most.

He put the shoe box back in the drawer, closed it, and then contemplated the rest of the room. Though part of him was afraid to, he knew the next step had to be looking in the closet. Still, if there were any human-sized dolls in there, he might do something entirely unmanly…

Thankfully, there was nothing in the closet but clothing. There were a number of empty hangers, and the dirty laundry hamper on the floor of the closet was empty as well, so the superficial evidence certainly indicated that Stella had packed a bag to leave town. A clever abductor could have faked that easily enough, though…

Shutting the closet door again, Arthur surveyed the room and felt irony strike him in the face. He’d overlooked the most obvious place of all. “Do you mind if I turn on her computer?”

“As long as you don’t break anything, go ahead.” Sara sat down again, looking bored.

“I’ll try to be quick,” Arthur assured her, with a smile. There was a box of diskettes next to the computer, which he looked through briefly. Stella was evidently fastidious with her data: each disk was carefully labelled. He put the word processing software in the main drive and turned the computer on. Once it was booted up, he put the most recent data diskette (dated the first week of July) in the secondary drive, and opened the only file on it. It was exactly what Arthur was hoping for: Stella’s notes towards her article. He turned on the printer, and began printing the notes.

Once the print job was finished, he carefully turned everything off again, and replaced the diskettes in their sleeves and in the box. Only then did he tear off the print-out and have a look at it. There was a rough outline of where she wanted the story to go, followed by a rather stream-of-consciousness report on her progress. This would be crucial information—undoubtedly much better than her original source papers in those folders—but there was still that other closet to check…

Leaving the bedroom was actually something of a relief, particularly with Sara dogging his steps. Arthur understood why she didn’t want to leave a strange man alone in one of her tenants’ flats, but it was still unnerving, having a woman following him around like that. (Not that he would have been any more comfortable with it if it had been a man.) Once he was back in the main room, he opened the closet, and found nothing of any significance. Heavy winter coats, winter boots, rain coats, umbrellas, nothing out of the ordinary. There were no suitcases, but there was definitely room for them. Again, strong evidence to suggest that she really left town, while not ruling out foul play within New York.

“You’re new to this, aren’t you?” Sara asked as he closed the closet door again.

“It’s my first time ‘aving a look at the home of a missing person, yes,” Arthur agreed. “I’m used to just rehashing what the police reports say in a situation like this one.”

Sara frowned for a moment, then sighed. “Anything else you want to look at in here?”

“I can’t really think of anything.” Arthur shook his head. “Like I said, I’ve never had to do this before, and I don’t ‘ave any idea what I’m supposed to be looking for. Ultimately, there probably _isn’t_ much more to see here. As you said, there’s no sign of a struggle. On top of that, there’s no suitcase, no passport, and a lot of her clothes are missing. Everything points to her actually ‘aving left town. Whether or not she reached the airport, whether she reached her destination, whether she came _back_ from her destination…I’ll ‘ave to look elsewhere for that. If you ‘ave a copy of her travel plans, I can try talking to the airline, or the hotel where she’d planned on stayin’ in Los Angeles, see if anyone saw her or knows what happened.”

“She left her travel plans with her neighbours. You just sit yourself down and don’t move an inch, and I’ll go get them.”

“Right.” Arthur went back into the kitchen and sat down, causing Sara to laugh at him. But he just couldn’t see himself being comfortable sitting on that sofa with all those dolls looking at him. Especially since there were rag dolls _on_ the sofa.

As Sara left the flat, Arthur turned his attention to the print-out of Stella’s plans for the article. Sadly, her outline was very vague. Obviously, the first thing to do was to outline the history of the story, everything that even the most oblivious reader would need to know about Burt Gurney to be able to follow the story. But that was to be only the common knowledge, what the people reading the newspapers in the 1950s would have known. The secret history was next, his sexuality, and everything that Stella could find about what he had done with his Communist cohorts. The last segment was marked with an asterisk and simply read “The impact it had then, and the lasting influence now—really have to nail this!”

That was so anti-climactic that it practically hurt just reading it. Not that Arthur’s early outlines necessarily were any better, but…

He had to hope that the notes that followed would turned out to be much more promising.

> This stuff will only take me so far. I know I’m right, but can I prove it? I’m not sure where to start.
> 
> I think he met a lot of the other Commies on the lot. Some of them wrote a few of his movies. I need to see the movies.
> 
> Maybe this was a mistake. Since I got back from DC, I feel like I’m being followed everywhere. Why did the Library of Congress keep copies of all those movies if you’re not allowed to watch them for research? No, why did they even _let_ me watch them if you’re not supposed to watch them?
> 
> Pity there’s only one of those writers in a prison near here. I’d like to get more of that inside information. There had to be more going on than that, surely!
> 
> I’m looking forward to going to LA. I can _feel_ eyes on me every time I get off the subway, and I can hear footsteps dogging me down the street. I’m hoping it’s just paranoia that it’s anything to do with this story. Maybe it’s just the serial rapist who’s been fouling this area for the last few years. Or maybe it’s just some racist fuckhead who wants to beat up everyone with brown skin.
> 
> Or maybe I’m in deep shit.

Arthur assumed that a lot of time passed in between each personal note. There was certainly a fair amount of raw data, but most of it was written in Spanish, which obviously didn’t help him any. At least it gave him a lead to follow: he’d need to arrange a visit with the sole member of Burt Gurney’s Communist cell who had been transferred to a prison in New York state, John Howard Herman. There was also the question of who would be alerted if someone went to the Library of Congress and insisted on accessing information that certain individuals didn’t want seen. It was hard to know who even to ask about that. If he tried asking someone _at_ the Library of Congress, he’d just set off the same (hopefully metaphorical) alarm bells that Stella Santos had.

Assuming, of course, that she _had_ set off any alarm bells. If this area of town was being stalked by a serial rapist, she might have fallen prey to him on her way to or from the airport. If that was the case…well, that at least might be something he could set wheels in motion on.

Sara returned with the travel plans, and set them down on the table in front of him. “The dolls won’t bite you, you know,” she said, with a smirk.

“I certainly hope not. I just felt more comfortable in here. But do you mind if I use her phone?”

“Who do you want to call?”

“My police contact.”

“I already told the pigs, and they didn’t do shit,” Sara reminded him.

“Yes, but this one’s different.”

Sara tapped her foot in irritation, then sighed. “All right, if you really think it’ll help.”

“Thanks.” Arthur got up and walked over to the phone, quickly dialling the number for Mark’s precinct. “Yes, I’d like to speak to Detective Kirby, please, if he’s available.” He was told to hold, and within five minutes, Mark had picked up the other end. “Mark, it’s Arthur.”

“What…? You’re not expecting me to bend any more rules for you, are you?” Mark’s voice was hushed and nervous. “I swear, I have Internal Affairs breathing down my neck here. The word is that Congress is going to approve of the President’s measure to have the police absorbed into the military. And if that happens…”

“I’m not askin’ you to break any rules, I promise,” Arthur assured him, before explaining about his current assignment.

“What do you expect me to do about that?” Mark asked. “It’s not my jurisdiction, and if the appropriate officers already dismissed the case…”

“I found some notes she left behind,” Arthur explained, “and they mentioned her fear she was being followed. And the fact that there’s a serial rapist roaming this area unchecked.”

“Yeah, and? You do know what ‘out of my jurisdiction’ means, don’t you?”

Arthur sighed. “Of course I do. But can’t you prod the appropriate department, try and get them to do something about it?”

“I don’t know, Arthur. What would I even say?”

“How about pointing out that catching someone like that would make the police force look good again, maybe even undo the stain left by Central Park.”

Nothing came through the phone except the sounds of the precinct office on the other end for a good thirty seconds at least. “I’ll see what I can do. But if someone like that took her and she didn’t turn up in the next 48 hours…you’re not getting her back in one piece.”

The idea set a shiver down Arthur’s spine. “If that’s so…well, surely that makes it all the more important to bring him to justice.”

Mark sounded less than convinced as he agreed to that, then hung up without another word. Well, at least Arthur had done what he could. If Stella had fallen victim to the rapist, it would be a horrible end to the story, but he couldn’t pick and choose the outcomes of his stories, after all. All he could do was hope it was something less awful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dolls of cartoon characters are mostly wood-bodied with composition heads. (Uh...okay, yes, Stella's collection kind of represents my fantasy about what my perfect doll collection would look like. So, yes, I can totally tell you *which* cartoon characters are represented. Or some of them, anyway.)
> 
> [Edit: Like the doofus that I am, immediately after I posted this chapter, I watched the movie "Trumbo" and realized that my understanding of the blacklist was woefully oversimplified and chronologically warped. (Which sounds absurd coming from someone with Master's Degree in History, but I specialized in European history, pre-20th century!) To a certain extent I will be able to fix that as I go in posting the rest of the chapters, but there still may be some inappropriate overemphasis on McCarthy that I can't entirely correct out. Just an FYI.]


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG, I hate spell-checkers! It says "maybe you picked the wrong word" when someone orders a heavy meal (because OBVIOUSLY they meant "heavy metal") but it completely ignores it when the text says "Curt came around the corning"!!! ARGH!!!!
> 
> *AHEM*
> 
> Sorry. Had to vent that. That, of course, is why I always do a final proofing in the AO3 editor. (Just wish I could say that it lets me catch *all* the errors instead of just *some* of them.)
> 
> And now, we return you to your regularly scheduled chapter.

It was just past one when Arthur returned to the flat, unsure just what he would find on the other side of the door. So far as he could tell, Curt was more or less recovered from whatever mental hang-up had caused his episodes since the shooting, but he still hadn’t been left alone for any serious length of time since that one particularly disturbing incident. Arthur really didn’t want to enter the flat and find Curt crying into a bottle of whiskey like last time. Though there was no deafening music playing, so perhaps that was a good sign.

Arthur hadn’t even finished closing the door behind him when he heard Curt shouting at him from somewhere deeper in the flat. “Where the _fuck_ have you been?!”

Arthur sighed. “I told you I had to go investigate the flat of the missing journalist.”

Curt came around the corner, looking quite annoyed. “How could that take so fucking long? You’ve been gone three hours!”

“For pity’s sake, Curt, just how quickly do you want me to do things? If I was the police, I’d probably ‘ave been there all day, combin’ over every inch of the place for fingerprints!”

“Yeah, but you’re _not_ the police…wait, you didn’t have that cop ex of yours meet you there, did you?”

“Curt, Mark’s not an ex.”

“You said you’d fucked him.”

Arthur grimaced. “Yes, once or twice, but that’s not—I don’t consider someone an ‘ex’ unless I’ve had an actual _relationship_ with him, not just a few quick shags.”

Curt sighed. “Whatever. Did you have him meet you there or not?”

“Of course not. It’s completely out of his jurisdiction. Now, are you done bein’ unreasonably jealous? Because I’d rather like something to eat.”

“You didn’t stop somewhere for lunch?”

“It didn’t seem like a good idea.” If Stella _had_ been targeted by the government, then he might be at risk for looking into her disappearance. “Besides, I had you to hurry home to, didn’t I?” Arthur added, leaning in for a light kiss. There was no balm like a little flattery to soothe Curt’s ruffled feathers.

From the way Curt was grimacing at him even after the kiss, Curt’s feathers were not smoothed at all. “Just get something to eat,” he sighed.

Well, so long as he wasn’t actively angry, perhaps that was the best Arthur could hope for. He set his satchel down in the dining room, and headed into the kitchen to see what was on offer in the refrigerator. Lacking anything fast and decent, he opted for just fast in the simplicity of reheating some leftover pizza. (At least Curt’s typical dietary habits had the occasional plus side.) Once it was heating up, he turned to glance into the rest of the flat to see if he could tell where Curt had gone, only to find him standing in the door to the kitchen, watching him with a flat, unreadable expression. “What?” Arthur asked, trying not to sound as defensive as he suddenly felt.

“Seriously, what were you doing there for thee fucking hours?”

Arthur sighed, and leaned back against the counter. “It took nearly half an hour on the subway each way,” he pointed out, “so I was only there for two hours.”

“Still, that’s pretty fucking long.”

“Yes, it is,” Arthur agreed, then explained about Stella’s files and how it had taken Sara’s friend more than an hour to have them all photocopied. “Believe me, I was quite bored.”

Curt sighed, and shook his head. “You coulda said that to start with.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. So…what was her story about? This chick that disappeared? Do you think she disappeared because of the story?”

Arthur shrugged. “It’s possible. Might ‘ave just been a victim of violent crime in Los Angeles, and the police there didn’t want to admit it.”

“So what was the story about?” Curt repeated.

“She was doin’ a thirty year retrospective on the defection of an actor named Burt Gurney.”

Curt frowned. “I feel like I know that name.”

“You’d ‘ave been about eight when it happened. Maybe you remember something?”

Curt looked up at the ceiling as the microwave dinged. He was still staring straight up when Arthur turned around again, with the plate in his hand. “Can’t remember it,” he finally said, with a sigh. “Don’t think it was anything that old, though. What kinda pictures did he make?”

“Trite musical comedies.”

“Guess I can see my old lady going to see those,” he admitted, “but not if the star was actually a Commie.”

Arthur laughed. “I suppose not,” he agreed, even as he realised that maybe there was another source he could talk to, locally, about just how the average American had reacted to the news of Burt Gurney’s defection, and any news that had come in since then. Assuming, of course, that he even _needed_ that information.

The topic was then entirely dropped, and as Arthur ate he found himself regaled with tales of the morning’s abortive practice session with the Rats, as Kevin’s leg was hurting (though the bullet wound should have long since healed up by now) and Steve had to leave almost as soon as he arrived because his wife couldn’t take their sick kid to the doctor after all. Johnny had hung about for an hour or so, trying to beat the high score on the _Space Invaders_ cabinet, but he was so bad at it that it had been driving Curt crazy watching him and being unable to take over, since his left hand still wasn’t working properly.

“Are you still all right for the concert?” Arthur asked, between bites of pizza.

“Yeah, they’re not done figuring out when to hold it yet,” Curt said, nodding. “They’ve got so many people who want to take part now that they’re talking about hijacking Times Square on New Year’s Eve.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow, hoping he only meant a metaphorical hijacking. “Would that really be a good idea? Wouldn’t everyone’s instruments freeze?”

Curt shrugged. “Guitars work in really fucking cold weather. I used to play outside as a kid all the time, even in the dead of winter. It’s a shit venue, though. The acoustics are all wrong; the sound’d be bouncing back all out of sync, like over-clocked vibrato. I’m fine with New Year’s Eve, though. Just not _there_. Someplace inside. Or at least more contained. A stadium or something.”

Arthur nodded. “Are you still bein’ expected to perform in every number?”

Curt laughed. “Fuck, they would if they could, you know? But I told ‘em that’d fucking kill me. ‘Course, most of those people signed on specifically to work with _me_ , so we might have to hold a lot of little concerts instead of one big one. Or maybe they’ll say ‘fuck the concert’ and just put out an album.”

“Glad I’m not the one ‘aving to put all this together.”

“Yeah, me too! Just the performance part is gonna be hard enough. I wouldn’t want Phil’s job for all the money in the world.” Curt chuckled. “Hell, I wouldn’t want his job for all the _ass_ in the world.”

Arthur nearly choked on his pizza. “There are some arses that would be more of a punishment than a reward,” he managed to say after he somehow swallowed it.

“Well, yeah, but…” Curt sighed. “Don’t be so fucking literal.”

“Sorry.”

Arthur finished up his meal in silence, but as soon as he was done with the dishes, Curt suddenly spoke again. “Did that really seem like I was being ‘unreasonably jealous’?” he asked.

Arthur sighed. “Yes, it did. You ‘ave a different interpretation?”

“I didn’t think I was being _jealous_ at all. I mean, it’s pretty rough out there. You could’ve been attacked or kidnapped or killed or God only knows what!”

Arthur smiled, and kissed him gently. “I’m sorry, love. You sounded cross, so I took that to mean you were jealous.” That and the way he got so worked up over the very idea that Mark might have been there.

“Well, I wasn’t.”

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time, I promise.”

Curt finally seemed placated by that, and headed into the other room to turn on the television. Even though he really ought to have been working on writing some songs for that concert, and/or the new album his label was trying to force him to record as soon as humanly possible (or preferably sooner). But Arthur was not about to risk riling him unnecessarily, so he just let it pass, and instead settled back down at the dining room table and returned his attention to Stella’s files.

At this point, the only lead he had—other than trying to contact the airlines and the hotel in Los Angeles—was the story she had been pursuing. If he could spot something about it that was likely to have set someone after her, something that someone would go to unwholesome lengths to cover up…maybe, if he was very lucky, he might be able to find out what happened to Stella Santos without becoming the next victim.

Trying to decipher thirty year old clues to a modern mystery, however…Arthur wasn’t sure he was up to _that_ challenge.

Still, he had to try, so he opened the folder on Burt Gurney and sorted his way through the photocopies to where he had been in the folder of originals. (Thankfully, the photocopies were still in the same order as the originals had been!) The next item was a clipping of a gossip column from some Los Angeles paper or other, written by a woman with the unlikely name of Thessaly Thacker. A paragraph halfway down the column had been circled, presumably by Stella.

> Seems there’s still troubled waters over at Capitol Pictures, more than two weeks after their star Burt Gurney disappeared into the deep blue sea, proving he that he was never the boy next door, but the man behind the Iron Curtain. Long-time Gurney director Ärne Seslum has been given a co-directing spot with Laurence Laurentz on _Merrily We Dance_. Will he be turning the poignant drawing room drama into yet another of the musical comedies that Ärne Seslum is so famous for? There are scurrilous rumors that Capitol Pictures is trying to cover up Communist leanings on the part of one of the two directors, though of course no one can agree which one! But you know, dear readers, I have been personally assured by a very good friend at Capitol that the change is being done to placate star Hobie Doyle, who just won’t work on the picture without his sweetheart Carlotta Valdez being involved. And how better to involve the Brazilian songbird than to make the picture a musical? Best of luck to you, my sweet little lovebirds!

Why did this story keep throwing Arthur into confusion for all the wrong reasons? How— _why_ —would anyone cast Hobie Doyle, “The Singing Cowboy,” in a non-Western that _wasn’t_ a musical? _Merrily We Dance_ was one of Arthur’s mum’s favourite films, so he’d seen it several times, and he had never guessed it had ever been anything _but_ a musical. Of course, Arthur was quite certain that this Thessaly Thacker was entirely wrong about why the drama had become a musical, and it had nothing to do with the bizarre dream sequence inserted halfway through to add in a Carlotta Valdez number: it had definitely been done because Hobie Doyle couldn’t act. The last time Arthur had seen that film he’d been fifteen; one of the local theatres always showed old movies on Wednesday mornings, and he’d had the day off school and no one his own age to spend time with, so he’d reluctantly accompanied his mum to see it. As a young man relatively newly awakened to his sexual desires, Arthur had naturally found Hobie attractive, but he’d been appalled at how flat and awkward (not to mention unpleasantly accented) all of Hobie’s spoken dialog was, and the surprising contrast between his emotionless speech and his passionate (if not overly skilful) singing.

But there was no way any of that was why Stella had circled the story. Did she think it really _did_ have something to do with Communism? Perhaps one of the people in question was later blacklisted…

_That_ at least was something Arthur could look into!

***

**Hollywood, 1954**

It was the kind of sight that made him want a cigarette. Something to hold onto. Something to stop his hands from shaking. But he was trying harder than ever to quit. After all, he’d turned down the Lockheed job with its shorter hours and better pay. He had to do something to make it up to Connie after that, and managing to quit smoking was the only thing he could think of that wasn’t cheap. A box of chocolates or a bunch of flowers would never cut the mustard. But an article like the one staring up at him from his desk was enough to drive him back to cigarettes. It would drive a lesser man to drink.

The headline was simple and straight to the point: “KHRUSHCHEV WELCOMES BURT GURNEY TO MOSCOW!” There was even a photograph of the two of them posing together like old friends. It didn’t look like the Burt Gurney that Eddie had known. The man he had known had been friendly and mild, always smiling in a kind way. This man looked full of arrogant pride, sporting not a smile but a smirk.

The article itself was also simple and straight to the point, but it went out of its way to mention that Burt Gurney had been working for Capitol Pictures. Mentioned it several times, in fact. Every time Eddie looked at the name of the studio in that article, he could _hear_ the House Un-American Activities Committee training its sights on Capitol Pictures all the way from D.C.

It shouldn’t be a problem. He knew that. Eddie was sure that all the Communists at the studio had been rooted out, one way or another. Most of them were in lock-up now, ironically thanks to Burt Gurney.

But there were still others on the lot who would come under scrutiny due to their close association with Burt. Two of them in particular, being especially close to him, _and_ being foreigners.

And one of them had quite a bit to hide.

Eddie picked up the newspaper and left his office, telling Natalie he was running a brief errand, and would be back soon. The cast of _Merrily We Dance_ was in the sound booth today, recording the songs that they would need for filming. He couldn’t be sure that Laurence Laurentz would be there, since the musical part of the film wasn’t his area, but if he wasn’t there, someone would know where he was.

Maybe it wasn’t really in the studio’s best interest to protect Laurentz time after time like this. Eddie doubted that Mr. Schenk knew one of his directors was engaged in _that sort_ of nocturnal activity. But if Capitol Pictures cut ties with Laurentz and left him to fend for himself against charges of sexual indecency, then they would have to cut ties with all the actors, writers, composers, singers and dancers who had the same tastes. That couldn’t be in the studio’s best interests. And it wouldn’t be right. He had asked repeatedly while in confession, and the father had assured him that while such actions were sinful, it wasn’t right for him or anyone else to judge those men for their actions: that was God’s role, and God’s alone. So Eddie would keep on protecting them from discovery, for their own sake, and for the sake of Capitol Pictures.

When he arrived at the recording facility, Eddie found that Laurentz was indeed there, attempting to watch as Joan Van Vechten and some of the other female cast members were recording a song inside the booth. Unfortunately for Laurentz, he was being distracted by Hobie Doyle’s attempts to talk to him.

“I don’ get ta go out there as oft’n as I’d like right now, ‘cause of this here studio pitcher, but it’s a swell ranch,” Hobie was saying. “Got me a handful of horses, real trick riders. You ever go ridin’? It’s real relaxin’ out on the prairie, jest me an’ a good ol’ horse like Whitey. ‘Course, he b’longs to the studio, so I cain’t ride him less’n I’m on a pitcher.” He grinned widely. “You should come out to my ranch sometime, Laurence! I could show you how I ride.”

“My dear boy, I have absolutely no interest in any demonstration of horsemanship,” Laurentz replied, his voice dripping with disdain.

But Hobie’s grin didn’t fade. That was worrying. Eddie hurried over to interrupt before he could say anything else. “Are you ready to record, Hobie?” he asked. “They’re finishing up their song.”

“Oh, hey there, Mr. Mannix. Yassir, I’m ready.” Hobie frowned. “Not sure what we’re doin’, though. Why are we recordin’ in here steada on the set?”

“That’s how it’s done on this kind of musical picture,” Eddie assured him. “You just listen to Ärne Seslum and do what he tells you.”

Hobie nodded obediently, but there was a look of impatience in his eyes, as if he wanted Eddie to leave. Thankfully, Ärne Seslum came to the rescue: “Yah, Hobie, ready for you now. In the booth! Hurry now!”

“Yassir, jest a minute!” Hobie called in the direction of the recording booth, then turned to look at Laurentz again. “Like I was sayin’, Laurence, you should come to my ranch sometime so I can show you how good I am at ridin’.” He grinned widely. “An’ I don’t _jest_ ride horses!” With that, he set off for the booth at a jog, leaving Laurentz staring after him with an expression that might have been dawning comprehension.

Exactly what Eddie didn’t want to have happen. “Laurence, we need to talk,” he said, setting a hand on the director’s shoulder. “In private.”

Laurentz looked at him with dismay and not a little irritation, then nodded, and led the way to a small office nearby, which was covered with notes regarding the music for _Merrily We Dance_. “What could be so important that you need to drag me away from my production?” he asked, suspiciously.

“Have you seen this?” Eddie asked, unrolling the newspaper to expose its front page story.

Laurentz frowned, and nodded. “Yes, of course. How is that an emergency? You must have known this was likely to happen. The only surprise about it is how long it took. Or are you saying this makes me a liability to the studio?” The sharp note of accusation in his voice was particularly cutting.

“You know there will be further inquiries. The authorities will suspect there are more Communists lurking at the studio here. Are you…prepared for that?”

Laurentz sighed. “What would you have me do, Mannix? I could lie to them as much as you want, but what good would that do when they already know the only secret I have to hide?” He shook his head. “No, it’s not even a secret—it never was! Perhaps I don’t flaunt my relationships the way most men do, but I don’t lie about them. I never have, and I have no desire to start now.” A slight sneer contorted his lips. “Nor will I feign shame about something that is not shameful.”

“They think it’s shameful, and most of the American public does, too,” Eddie reminded him. “I’m not asking you to lie, just to be careful what you say around anyone from outside the studio. Don’t give them any opportunities to turn your past against you. And maybe no parties until this calms down.” The pool parties at Laurence Laurentz’s house were a recurring headache for the studio; once a month, Eddie was always having to step in with a contribution to the police fund to keep them from being raided. And every man who attended those parties knew all about Laurentz’s past relations with Burt Gurney. In the current situation, they were less a potential public relations nightmare than a spark in a tinder keg.

“I am hardly in the mood for parties at present anyway,” Laurentz sighed. “I suppose no one will hold it against me if I should cancel.”

“Great. Glad to hear it.” Eddie nodded, folding the paper back up and stowing it under his arm. “How are the recording sessions going?”

“The songs are musically simplistic with banal lyrics.”

“Er…that’s…you could have a word with the composer and lyricist if you—that’s what the public expects in a musical picture, though.”

Laurentz grimaced. “Yes, I am all too well aware of that, having sat through far too many of them. That does not mean I have to like it.”

“No, of course not. But the recording sessions…?”

“There haven’t been any major problems that I’ve seen. Those who have been recording up until now have been _professionals_.” He cast a glance in the direction of the sound booth. It wasn’t as disgusted as it should have been. “I’m sure they’re having problems now…”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Eddie assured him. “Ärne Seslum is used to dealing with singers who have no experience in a recording booth. And Carlotta Valdez should be by soon to record her duet with Hobie. He’ll behave for her. To impress her.”

Laurentz looked at Eddie with an almost unnaturally blank expression. “I see…”

Good. Just the kind of reaction Eddie was hoping for. “If you’ve got everything in hand, I’ll get getting back to my office.” Laurentz only nodded, still looking lost in a void, so Eddie hurried back as quick as he could. He didn’t stop walking until he reached Natalie’s desk. “Tell publicity to step up the relationship between Hobie Doyle and Carlotta Valdez,” he said. “Send them out dancing Saturday night—no, scratch that, Hobie can’t dance. Doesn’t matter where they go; they just need to be seen by every gossip columnist in town.”

***

**New York City, 1984**

The first phone calls of the day had all been one hundred percent fruitless: neither the airline nor the hotel in Los Angeles would tell him anything about Stella Santos. They both insisted that they could only tell the police if a passenger/guest had taken the flight/room they had booked. The idea of claiming to _be_ a police officer briefly crossed his mind, but was dismissed even more quickly than it had arisen: if he had claimed that, they’d have asked for a badge number, and then what?

Thankfully—and surprisingly—the prison was much more cooperative. They told him that Stella Santos had indeed come to interview John Howard Herman (which Arthur already knew, of course) and that they hadn’t heard anything about her since. They didn’t know what she’d talked to the prisoner about, but they were happy to give Arthur an appointment to ask the prisoner about it personally. It wouldn’t be for two days (red tape and all that), but it was still much better than nothing.

His last phone call was a gamble in every possible way, but once he got her past using faux French that she seemed to have learnt from the Muppets, it went astonishingly smoothly. To the point where she agreed to meet him for lunch that day, which was doubly advantageous. Curt and the Rats were going to be working on the new “Brian Slade” song, and the man himself (what was left of him) was coming to fix up the song on the fly. There was no part of that Arthur wanted to be present for, and Curt was so receptive to the idea of Arthur going out to research his story that it was very clear that Curt didn’t want Arthur and Brian in the flat at the same time, either. Whether that was out of lingering love for Brian or out of a desire to shield Arthur from Brian’s quasi-jealousy…Arthur didn’t think he wanted to know. It worked to his advantage, so he was trying not to think about it at all beyond that.

She had picked a quiet little bistro to meet in, and was already seated at a corner booth on the inner patio when Arthur arrived. Still wearing her rhinestone-encrusted sunglasses, she was watching him from the moment he caught sight of her as he entered the bistro until he took a seat across from her. “Did my brother send you, or did he dump you and this is some kind of twisted vengeance thing?” she asked.

Arthur smiled uncomfortably. “Neither,” he assured her. “I was discussing my story with him, and a passing comment he made left me curious if you’d ‘ave any memories of the event in question. And…I guess…well, earlier, it sounded like you wanted to mend your relationship with him, and it seemed a shame for that effort to fail.”

Curt’s sister raised an eyebrow, and let out a little chuckle. Rather than answering right away, she opened her little bag, and reached inside. The motion set something moving underneath the table. Instinctively, Arthur looked to see what, and found that a little bundle of fur was attached to Angie’s chair by a long lead that was wound around and between and around again every leg underneath the tablecloth other than Arthur’s. Between its general shape and the yip-yap noises it was making, it was obviously some kind of dog, but exactly _what_ kind, Arthur had no idea. Looked like an animate bundle of long hair, rather than a proper animal from where he was sitting.

By the time Arthur looked back over at her, Angie was now holding a lit cigarette, fitted into a long holder as if she thought she could somehow become Holly Golightly. She removed the holder from between her bright red lips and blew the smoke in Arthur’s direction. “She’s a very expensive purebreed,” she said, with a smile. “Cost one of my…friends…a great deal of money.”

‘Friends.’ An odd euphemism, but Arthur didn’t think calling her on it would be a good idea. He’d already made her rather cross on the phone when he’d tried to explain that ‘avec moi’ meant ‘with me,’ not ‘it’s me,’ or whatever she had thought it meant. “I don’t really know anything about dogs.”

“It’s the ‘in’ breed at the moment,” Angie insisted, sucking on her cigarette holder. “Everyone wants one.”

“Um…if you say so…”

Angie lowered her cigarette to an ashtray and made an elegant gesture to knock the ashes off. It would have worked fine if she’d been holding the cigarette directly, instead of in that holder. As it was, it made quite an unappealing mess. “Why would you care if Curt and I start talking again?” she asked. “Don’t all fags hate family?”

Arthur did his best to contain his grimace. “It’s quite the opposite,” he said, through his teeth. “Most of the time, our families hate _us_. If Curt’s family is finally ready to accept him, no matter how uncomfortably…”

She laughed callously. “Aw, does his own famiwy hate him?”

“Did you only agree to this meeting because you wanted a laugh at my expense?”

Angie gave up on her cigarette, mashing it out in the ashtray so violently that it burst, sending splinters of tobacco (mostly not lit) over a third of the table. “Don’t be such an easy mark if you don’t like being mocked.” She shook the remnants of the cigarette out of the end of her holder, which she dumped back in her purse. “So what was it _you_ wanted to talk about? I doubt you bothered calling me up because you were so desperate to see Curt make up with me the way you can’t make up with your own sister.”

“I only ‘ave a brother, actually. And you’re right, that wasn’t my primary goal.” Arthur smiled, trying to think of some way to smooth over the wreck that this conversation had already become. “I’m workin’ on a story right now, and it’s a bit unconventional, but based on something Curt said, I was thinkin’ it was possible you might actually be able to provide a little background insight.”

“Me?” Angie looked at him sceptically. “What in the world are you writing about?”

“It’s a retrospective on the defection of the actor Burt Gurney,” Arthur explained. No point in mentioning the main aspect of the story, since the chances of Angie being able to help with _that_ were roughly zero.

Angie laughed. “Wow, that was _ages_ ago! Must have been almost thirty years?”

“Exactly thirty, in fact.”

Angie shook her head. “Had you even been _born_ yet?”

“I hadn’t, actually.” No point in lying about it.

She sighed. “I think my little brother has a widdle complex about older men now,” she said, with a wicked smile. “As if he thought he’d get hurt if he didn’t chase after little boys like you.”

“Can’t imagine why he’d think that,” Arthur said coldly. How could she joke about her own brother being subjected to eighteen months of electric shock treatments?! (And was she implying that Cecil’s story had been true, and that Curt really had been caught servicing his elder brother?) “And I’m hardly a ‘little boy,’ even if I am younger than Curt.” Though the term might have been sarcastically applied to him when they first met…

Angie waved her hand dismissively, as if the physical and psychological damage her parents had done to her own brother was inconsequential. “Why in the world would you want to write about some stupid Commie if you weren’t even alive when he turned traitor in the first place?”

“A journalist doesn’t get to pick his stories. And it’s the thirtieth anniversary, even if most Americans seem to ‘ave forgotten Burt Gurney ever existed.”

“I suppose they have,” Angie agreed, looking thoughtful. “I can’t remember the last time I saw one of his pictures.”

“According to my sources, the studio destroyed all the prints, so you wouldn’t ‘ave even had the opportunity since 1954.”

“What a pity! Some of them were actually pretty good.” Angie shook her head. “There was a theatre not far from where Curt and I grew up that had a back door that didn’t lock properly. We all used to go and sneak in to watch movies for free.”

“You and Curt and…your elder brother?” While it was awkward not to know the name of Curt’s elder brother (possibly also his ex-lover), Arthur felt sure that bringing the subject up in any way would only injure Curt.

“And the other kids from the neighbourhood,” Angie said, nodding. And obviously expecting Arthur not to know that the ‘neighbourhood’ the Wild family lived in was a trailer park. “Sometimes the other kids’ parents even came. Not ours, though. They were too holier-than-thou to do something like that. Besides, mom thought most pictures were sent by the Devil.” She laughed. “Funny that she used to love Burt Gurney musicals until she found out he was a Commie!”

“Bet she wouldn’t ‘ave liked them so much if she’d known he was also a homosexual,” Arthur couldn’t stop himself from saying.

“What, really? What a waste of a good-looking man!” Angie shook her head. “Is _that_ why you’re doing a story on him?”

“No, it was assigned to me. But it’s sure to come up in the story. Especially since he hasn’t been heard from in nearly twenty years, and the Soviets are none too fond of our kind, either.”

“Huh. I wonder why not? They’re really anti-religion, so why would they care?”

“That’s a good question, actually,” Arthur agreed, since religion was usually the go-to excuse when straight people wanted to attack gays. “Probably hypocrisy. But I’m sure they make some excuse about reproduction.”

Angie laughed. It actually sounded quite genuine.

“So…uh…I take it you remember what happened when he defected?” Arthur asked.

“Yeah, more or less. It’s not like the Kennedy assassination—no one’s going to be able to remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news—but I remember how everyone reacted to it.” Angie chuckled. “They had a big bonfire and everyone tossed in everything they had related to Burt Gurney. Soundtrack albums to his movies, movie magazines with him on the cover, souvenirs from his movies, all that.”

Fans burning their records in the streets…a wave of painful memories washed over Arthur. “Ah…souvenirs?” he repeated, trying to tamp down all thoughts of Brian Slade and the hate his fans had unleashed in the summer of 1974. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, you know, lobby cards, movie programmes, that kind of thing. Or didn’t they do that in England? That’s where you’re from, right?”

“Yes, and…if they did make lobby cards and movie programmes, they weren’t still producing them by the time I was old enough to remember them.”

Angie looked up with a thoughtful expression on her face that really highlighted her family resemblance to Curt. “I suppose they did sort of peter out around the ‘50s, actually. Maybe the early ‘60s.” She shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. Those sort of things were hard to come by when you weren’t paying admission and going in the front like the normal people.”

“But by the early ‘60s you’d ‘ave been in your teens. Surely you weren’t still sneaking into the movies by then?”

She laughed bitterly. “We only stopped when the theatre changed hands and the new owners fixed the door. That was…hmm…1967, I think? Maybe ’68.”

“Wow.” How poor were the people in the trailer park that they had kept sneaking into the cinema into their twenties? “But…ah…about Burt Gurney…do you remember how—what official reactions were? Not just how the people reacted?”

“Well, I was pretty young.” Angie smiled tightly. “You’ll understand if I don’t say exactly how old I was. A lady doesn’t admit her age, after all.”

Arthur smiled pleasantly, and didn’t say a word about how absurd it was for a call girl to claim to be a lady. “Of course.” He hardly needed her to, after all. She was at least two years older than Curt, possibly even three to four years older. “Then you don’t remember anything?” That would make this a complete waste of time. The anecdote about people burning their memorabilia would be useful if he was _actually_ writing the story on Burt Gurney, but it told him absolutely nothing about who might have wanted to stop Stella Santos from investigating him. Not that the official reactions to the defection necessarily would tell him anything, either…

“Well…my parents did listen to the radio news a lot—we didn’t have a television until the ‘60s—and there must have been a lot on the radio about it, because I still remember some of it. Mom’s favourite programmes were all sermons and Evangelicals preaching about all the ways society was sick and how everyone was going to go to Hell. They obviously spent a lot of time talking about how Burt Gurney was going to burn for joining the Godless hordes of Russia and Stalin.”

“Stalin was already dead by then,” Arthur pointed out.

Angie shrugged. “I absolutely remember them using that phrase, so maybe they didn’t pay attention to world news. Or they meant Stalinism rather than Stalin himself. Anyway, my dad preferred the news. He liked to listen to the broadcasts of the Commie hearings.”

“The House Un-American Activities Committee, you mean?” Arthur asked. “Or was it the McCarthy hearings?”

“Both, actually. Dad kept saying how Senator McCarthy should run for President.”

Arthur couldn’t repress a shudder at the thought.

Angie laughed at his reaction. “Dad was so depressed when McCarthy died; he thought McCarthy would be a shoe-in for the 1960 elections.”

“Did any of the House Un-American Activities Committee meetings in the latter portion of 1954—or in 1955—mention Burt Gurney that you recall?” Arthur asked. Trying to dig into all those records would be a nightmare…

“Mmm…nothing I remember hearing. I didn’t listen to the news as much as mom’s religious stuff. They probably did. I mean, how many other Americans ever defected to the Russians? The other way, sure, that happens all the time, but Americans? He’s probably the only one!”

“I’m sure he’s not, but certainly the only high profile one,” Arthur agreed. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of anything else to ask her. This may have been a complete and utter waste of his time. Except that it served to get him out of the flat so he wouldn’t be there while a certain other party was…

While Arthur was pondering if he could think of anything else to ask, the waiter finally came over to take their orders. Angie ordered a surprisingly heavy meal—evidently she wasn’t worried about gaining weight—and then smiled at him. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not expecting you to treat me,” she said. “We’ll have separate cheques. Go ahead and order, and then while we’re waiting for our food, you can fill me in on everything my brother won’t tell me about his life.”

Oh God…what had Arthur let himself in for?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like in the 1950s there was a different way of transliterating the name Khrushchev that involved fewer "h"s, but I wasn't quite sure how to look it up, so...I just went with the current transliteration. (If anyone happens to know how it was being spelled by Americans in the 1950s, I'd greatly appreciate the info!)
> 
> Also, yeah, that was probably highly anachronistic for a priest for the 1950s to be so tolerant (if that's the right word) of homosexuality. But...realistically, the only options are for Eddie not to have wondered about his own culpability in covering up for behavior that the society he lived in believed to be sinful, or for the priest to have been very "live and let live" about it. And somehow the latter felt more realistic than the former to me.


	4. Chapter 4

As Arthur awaited the arrival of the car to take him to the prison (Curt had insisted that he wasn’t going to take a bus, and had his manager arrange a car and driver), he went over his notes, but they were pathetically slim. He had spent the last day and a half at the library, looking up any and all information he could find, but hadn’t found much. When he had looked up Burt Gurney in the various indices available to him, there had only been a handful of entries. A few movie reviews from 1950-1953, maybe a dozen articles on the defection itself (if even that many), and two articles about the fallout of the defection. One of the latter talked about the fan outrage—though not going as far as mentioning fans burning records in the streets—and the other was from late 1958, when McCarthyism was finally beginning to wane (a full year after McCarthy’s own death!), reflecting on how tragic it was that Capitol Pictures’ profits had slowly but steadily decreased since the defection. Only two parts of that article seemed even remotely interesting to Arthur. The first was a mention of Reynolds as a member of the House who was the only one still “gung-ho” about the anti-Communist movement, and whose enthusiasm was shifting the movement’s focus away from Hollywood and the arts and more towards Reynolds’ perpetual bugbear, journalism, a movement which the author of the article hoped would help Capitol recover. The second was the assessment that the only bright spot left in the Capitol line-up was the society pictures of Laurence Laurentz, as Capitol’s output was otherwise monopolised by Hobie Doyle Westerns and an increasingly alcoholic Baird Whitlock, as most of their other stars had either moved on to other studios or entered into semi-retirement for family reasons, like DeeAnna Moran.

More frustrating than the lack of information in the articles was the sheer dearth of them. The movie reviews alone _ought_ to have taken up at least a page to themselves in the pertinent indices, and the articles on the defection should have been five or six pages! Had someone purposefully omitted them from the indices? And if so, had they done so simply because they assumed no one would go looking, or was it because they didn’t want anyone to find anything if they _did_ go looking? Hoping it was the former reason, Arthur had done a few checks: after reading one movie review, he had checked the microfiche records for about a dozen other newspapers for the same day, and found that most of them genuinely had no available reviews of those Burt Gurney movies. It wasn’t that they hadn’t reviewed them, it was that someone had carefully omitted the reviews when creating the microfiche images. In some cases, there were actual holes in the image of the page that had been photographed, where the story had been cut out first. The same held true for the articles about the defection; more than half of the available newspapers at the New York Public Library had been vetted of all information about Gurney’s defection prior to being photographed. But why? Who had done it? Were they an enraged fan who didn’t want anyone reminded of it? That seemed unlikely; surely if they had been, they’d have removed _all_ information. The only conclusion Arthur had been able to come up with was that something else was mentioned in those articles, something no one wanted the world reminded of. But what, and did it have any connection to Stella Santos’ disappearance?

He was still pondering the question when the doorman called up to the flat to tell them that the car had arrived. “You’re sure you’re gonna be all right by yourself?” Curt asked, as Arthur was headed to the door.

“I’ll be fine,” Arthur assured him. “It’s a minimum security prison; except this fellow, everyone there is for white collar crime. There aren’t any violent criminals.”

“Except the Communist spy you’re going to be alone with.”

“He’s a screenwriter, not a spy,” Arthur said, laughing. “Not to mention that he was already middle-aged when he was arrested thirty years ago. There’s nothing an aging writer is going to be able to do to me.”

Curt nodded pensively. “Yeah. But…what if it was because she talked to this guy that that woman disappeared?”

“Based on the timing of her disappearance, if she disappeared because of the story, it was because of something she learnt in Washington or Los Angeles,” Arthur assured him. “But I’m not ready to rule out unrelated violent crime yet.” Though every step forward he took in investigating the story she’d been working on suggested more and more strongly that it was, in fact, because of this Gurney story that she had vanished. Still, he wasn’t about to tell Curt that while he was already worried!

Curt laughed. “C’mon, you really expect me to believe you’re that naïve? If it was unrelated violent crime, the cops would have looked into it themselves, and you wouldn’t be having to do this.”

“Well…yes, that’s probably true.” Why did Curt always choose the worst times to be perspicacious? “Still, even if it _was_ because of what she learnt from the man I’m about to go see, they’ll not do anything to me with a witness present, so I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Curt sighed, and leaned in to give Arthur a kiss. “All right, go on, but be careful, okay? Don’t let them record your interview, and don’t let on to anyone if he tells you anything important.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful,” Arthur promised, which was about the only thing he _could_ promise, he reflected as he left the flat and got in the lift. He couldn’t claim he’d stop the prison from recording the interview: they’d hardly tell him about it if they were going to do it, and it might even be prison policy to do so.

When Arthur left the building, he found that the driver currently leaning on the side of the car waiting for him was Frank, the same one who had driven them to New Jersey so he could interview that gun shop owner. Arthur wasn’t sure if the familiar face was reassuring, or if his presence was somehow worrying; before, the implication had been that Frank was not only a driver, but also a bodyguard. Did that mean Curt was so worried that he had insisted on a bodyguard, or was Frank just the only local driver Curt’s label ever provided him? Arthur didn’t think it was prudent to ask, so he just greeted him in a friendly manner and pretended everything was utterly normal.

Once they were out of the city, Frank opened the window between the front and back seats. “You sure get sent on some dangerous assignments,” he commented.

Arthur laughed. “It’s not as bad as all that,” he insisted.

“You’re going to a prison to interview a famous spy, and you don’t think that’s bad? What _would_ you class as bad, then?”

“He’s really not a spy.” Arthur sighed. “But is he really all that famous?”

“Sure,” Frank said, nodding. “I was about sixteen when all that went down, so I remember it pretty well. The Soviet Scribblers trials were all over the news for almost six months.”

Such an asinine title to give them… “According to the research I’ve seen, they hadn’t really done anything much other than contacting the submarine that took Burt Gurney to Russia.”

“The trials were closed to the public, but all these hints leaked out about abductions and blackmail and things like that.” Frank shrugged. “Everyone was real surprised no one was given the death penalty in the end.”

“I think that just proves that anything dangerous they had done was entirely Burt Gurney’s doing,” Arthur said.

“I hope you’re right, because there’s no way the prison’s going to let me come inside to the interview with you.”

“He’s an old man by now. I’ll be fine.” Arthur hesitated a moment. “Are you more driver or bodyguard to Curt, anyway?”

“Both,” Frank replied with a laugh. “Always both. The label prefers it that way; fewer salaries to pay.”

Arthur agreed that that certainly seemed to fit typical corporate thinking, and the car fell into an awkward silence until they arrived at the prison. As it was a minimum security prison filled primarily with Wall Street types, Arthur had somehow been expecting something less prison-like and more akin to a walled-off boarding school. Instead, he found it to be a fortified compound like any other prison, if perhaps a bit older-looking. It still had armed guards in towers at the fences, and the guard at the gate insisted on seeing half a dozen forms of identification before they were allowed in. (Arthur, of course, had been told about that requirement on the telephone, and had brought everything he needed and then some. Thankfully, someone at the label must have known what the requirements were as well, because Frank had all his paperwork, too. Though as an American-born citizen, he needed fewer papers than Arthur did.)

The car was directed to visitor parking places in a small lot just inside the wall, next to a guards’ station. A guard was waiting in the doorway, and was already walking over to the car as Frank turned it off. Frank lowered his window as the guard approached.

“Arthur Stuart?” the guard asked, peering in through the window.

“He’s in the back,” Frank said. “I’m just the driver.”

The guard nodded. “You can either stay in the car or come wait in the guard room,” he told Frank. “Mr. Stuart, please exit the car and follow me.”

Arthur hurried to comply, and followed the guard past the guard station and into a processing area. He’d had to visit prisons for stories before, so he knew the routine, and he found that this prison followed the same routine as the higher security facilities he’d been to in the past. The official who checked over Arthur’s belongings to make sure there was nothing dangerous or contraband recited the regular rules at him, culminating in a new one. “Since the prisoner you’ll be speaking with was convicted of high treason, all your interactions with him will be recorded as a matter of policy.”

“I understand,” Arthur said, as he accepted his things back from the guard who had been searching them. “Are these records kept? Available to the press?”

“Why?” the official asked, looking at him suspiciously.

“Well, when I called to set up this appointment, I asked about another journalist, Stella Santos, who had come to see this prisoner? She’s, um, sort of disappeared, so if I had access to the recording of her conversation with him—”

“The recordings are only available to prison officials, law enforcement, and legal counsel when applicable,” the official replied in a harsh rote. Then he smiled. “I was the one who checked over the recording of their conversation,” he said, “and there wasn’t anything suspicious in it. Maybe she just met a man and ran off with him?”

Arthur highly doubted that. “Maybe so,” he said, smiling pleasantly. No point in letting on his worries. At best they’d make him sound paranoid. At worst…

“If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to see the prisoner,” the official went on, and preceded Arthur out of the room. They passed through a pleasant brick hallway entirely unlike what Arthur was used to in a prison. In the distance, he caught a glimpse of the usual cells, but rather than heading towards the cells, he found that the official was soon turning turned in another direction, away from them.

“Is it typical for a prisoner on federal charges to be transferred to a state prison?” Arthur asked. “I thought the two systems were entirely separate.”

“They normally are,” the official agreed. “This was a special case. To be honest, I think every warden who’s had this fellow or one of his friends in his care has felt like they don’t really belong in jail at all. They’re harmless, no matter what their political leanings. But they were sentenced to life without parole, so we can’t just let them go, can we? Someone pulled some strings to get them transferred into state facilities where they were less apt to get killed by the other prisoners.”

Arthur tried not to react in shock. Was that what had happened to the few of the screenwriters who had died in prison? “Were they being attacked regularly in the federal prisons?” he asked instead.

“Not as far as I know. Not beyond the usual prison conditions. Some of them even made friends with Commies locked up for more violent crimes.”

Arthur wasn’t sure if that was worrying or reassuring, and he continued to ponder its ramifications as they completed the walk to the room where the prisoner was waiting to speak to him. There were two types of rooms in which Arthur had met with prisoners before, and this was unlike both of them. Usually, when he interviewed a prisoner, he was taken to a typical interrogation room, a table and two chairs in a featureless room, sometimes with a one-way mirror. Once in a while (typically when the prison had a secret to keep), he wouldn’t be afforded that privilege as a journalist, and would have to go to the standard visiting room as if it was a social call, and only speak to the prisoner with bulletproof glass in between him and whoever he was speaking to. The room Arthur entered now looked like an ordinary lounge, with four sofas, a central table, and small side tables to either end of each sofa. Was this what an interrogation room looked like in a minimum security prison, or had they been trusted with one of the rooms where the guards would take their breaks? Perhaps minimum security prisons didn’t even _have_ interrogation rooms? Did they trust their guests (or their prisoners) so much that this was the receiving area when a prisoner’s family came to visit him?

No matter the explanation of the room, it was already occupied when Arthur arrived. The prisoner, John Howard Herman, was sitting on one of the sofas, reading a book. As Arthur had already known, Herman was about eighty, but he seemed quite healthy and vigorous for his age; he sported a thin band of white hair at the back and sides, with only a few remaining wisps at the top, was neatly shaven, and there was an intelligent sparkle in his eyes as he rose to greet Arthur that implied he had lost none of his wits in the thirty years he had been imprisoned. He patted uncomfortably at his orange prison jumpsuit even as he tossed his book onto the sofa beside where he had been sitting; to Arthur’s surprise, the book was Gaskell’s _North and South_.

“Take as long as you want,” the official said to Arthur. “Knock on the door when you’re done, and the guard will let you out.” So, even at a minimum security prison, they weren’t lax enough to let the prisoners (or the press) have free reign of the halls.

As the official shut the door behind him (and the lock snicked into place), Herman extended a hand towards Arthur. “Always nice to have a visitor,” he said. “Second one I’ve had this summer. It’s quite exciting to know the world hasn’t forgotten about me.”

Arthur smiled uncomfortably and, not quite knowing what else to do, accepted Herman’s hand. Following the handshake, they both sat down on opposite sides of the central table, and Arthur opened his notebook. “I don’t know how much the prison officials told you about why I’m here?” he started, as he got his pencil ready.

“Only that you were another reporter. Not even your name.”

“I’m Arthur Stuart, a freelance journalist for the Nathan Journalism Group.”

“Ah, the same as Miss Santos,” Herman said. “Then is this a follow-up interview?”

Arthur frowned. “Not…exactly.” He bit his lip for a moment. “To tell you the truth, I was hopin’ you could tell me what you told her.”

“Can’t you ask her yourself?”

“My story is about her disappearance, so…no.”

Herman looked concerned. “She’s gone missing?”

Arthur nodded. “She went to Los Angeles about a week and a half after she spoke to you, and never came back; she’d ‘ave been back about five weeks by now.”

“That is dreadful news. You don’t think it’s my fault, do you?”

“Well, I know you didn’t personally ‘ave anything to do with it,” Arthur said with a feeble chuckle, “but I can’t rule out the possibility that someone didn’t want her knowing whatever you told her. I don’t _think_ that’s it, but until I find out what you two talked about, I can’t be sure.”

“I see. Well, I’m not sure I can remember everything I said to her, precisely. We mostly just talked about the events that led up to my incarceration.”

“And you don’t remember telling her anything out of the ordinary, anything you ‘aven’t told to others you’ve spoken to in the past?”

Herman shook his head. “No, it was all quite routine. Depressingly so, really. She mentioned early on that her brother had gone back to their native Cuba, so I was hoping that maybe she was secretly like-minded, but she didn’t show any signs of being disenchanted with capitalism.”

Given the way she was feeding the system with her obsession with material objects in the form of dolls, it would have been quite odd if she _had_ shown such a sign. “How long had it been since anyone had come to interview you before this year?”

“Oh, my, that _has_ been a long time!” Herman sighed. “I suppose the last one was a bit over ten years ago. Mostly they’ve been film students from New York University, wanting to learn just which movies we added our own special messages to.”

“Your own special messages?” Arthur repeated. “Like, secret codes?”

Herman laughed. “No, no, nothing like that! Scenes and storylines that would encourage the workers to rise up against their capitalist masters. For example, did you ever see _Kerner’s Corner_?”

“Never heard of it, no.”

“Ah.” The crestfallen look on Herman’s face told Arthur that he must have written it himself.

“I don’t really know many American movies older than I am,” Arthur added, with a weak smile.

“No, no, I suppose you wouldn’t.” Herman waved a hand to dismiss the topic. “Well, it doesn’t matter. The short version is that we put in subtle Communist messages about the triumph of the little guy over corrupt holders of power. Who wouldn’t want to see that, who wouldn’t _agree_ with that? That’s what we’re all looking for, in our own way, isn’t it, the triumph of the little guy. Surely you’re in favour of the little guy, Mr. Stuart?”

Arthur laughed, perhaps a little bitterly. “Mr. Herman, I _am_ the little guy.” If perhaps a little less so now that he was (temporarily) living with a rock star…

Herman laughed, too. “Why, then you should be one of us!”

Arthur shook his head. “I’d love to see a system that was more egalitarian than what we’ve got, but Communism…no, I don’t think that can work.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because Karl Marx had a great grip on history, and a lousy understanding of psychology.”

Herman stared at him for a moment, then laughed. “I don’t agree, but I believe I understand why you think that.”

“But if we could get back on topic, how about you walk me through the story of what happened thirty years ago?” Arthur asked. “The newspaper accounts I was able to dig up were stilted, and not very detailed.”

“Yes, of course.” Herman sighed. “Do you want me just to start with Burt’s decision to defect, or all the way back when I discovered Communism?”

“Uh…you can give me the précis version to bring me up to speed, but since Stella’s story was on Burt Gurney’s defection, I don’t think I need too much information prior to his involvement.”

A look of disappointment crossed Herman’s face. He’d probably never encountered anyone who wanted _his_ story instead of Burt Gurney’s, and probably never would. “I suppose they all flow together either way. I believe it was Dutch Zweistrong who first began talking about Communism. He wrote the _All the Way_ pictures. Are you familiar with those at all?”

“ _All the Way_?” Arthur repeated.

“ _All the Way to Uruguay_ was the last of them. The last of Dutch’s, anyway. There may have been more after we were locked up. Prison libraries don’t exactly subscribe to _Variety_.”

Arthur laughed. “No, I guess they don’t,” he agreed. Then he paused a moment, thinking. “Oh, I think I may ‘ave heard of those films. They’re comedies, yeah? With that one boring comedian America booked to all its USO shows, and some old crooner?”

“That’s them, yes,” Herman agreed, nodding. “Made a fortune, and of course Dutch didn’t see a penny of it. Well, Dutch wasn’t going to stand for that, but he’d signed a contract, and didn’t really have any _choice_ but to stand for it. We were all in the same boat, naturally, all of us writers. The pictures made millions, and we made pennies. I’m sure it’s the same for you, isn’t it? How much money has Jeffrey Nathan made off your stories over the years?”

“Actually, this’ll only be my second story for him,” Arthur said, shaking his head. “Suppose my last one probably did sell a few extra copies of _Weekly News_ , but I ‘ave no idea how many, or how much of it turned into profits in Nathan’s pockets. I don’t exactly ‘ave access to the magazine’s financial information. And my previous job was at a paper that consistently lost money.” Arthur shook his head. “News isn’t a business that rakes in big profits.”

“And yet it produced some of the wealthiest men in American history, like Hearst and Pulitzer,” Herman pointed out.

“That was a different age. One that didn’t ‘ave television.”

Herman laughed. “Well, that’s true.”

“Besides, it’s really the advertising that makes the money, not the stories. My work’s largely meaningless, financially. Except if the articles in a paper or magazine were all rubbish, soon no one would buy it. But no one journalist has any more or less to do with success or failure than any other.”

“Perhaps they’re not comparable,” Herman admitted, nodding. “But pictures! Where would the studios be without writers? Nowhere! And yet we were one of the lowest paid groups on the studio lot. For years, we just met up in bars to drink and lament our lot in life, until Dutch started telling us about Marx and Engels.” He smiled. “That was before the Cold War became the Cold War, of course. By the time that happened, we were doing less complaining and instead engaging in serious conversation, of course. We took to meeting in our apartments, whoever had the room to hold the whole group. We would all prepare for a meeting by reading a particular work or chapter, and discuss its meaning together.”

“Sounds like a book club,” Arthur commented. Seemed like the sort of thing his mum would do, if it was charming romantic tales or cosy murder mysteries instead of political and economic theory.

“Well, yes, in a way it was. Of course, we also discussed our current projects for our studios. We had writers from every major studio in our group, and we’d talk about how we could subvert the capitalist message from within, changing it to a Communist one. We weren’t always successful at that, of course. Sometimes we were adapting a novel, or writing based on a story the director or producer had insisted on, and there just wasn’t a way. But we succeeded more often than not, and I’ve always said that I liked to think we’d changed a few minds.”

“Why didn’t you keep on doing that, then? Eatin’ away at the system from within? Wouldn’t ‘ave landed you in jail, considerin’ you made it past the initial round of the HUAC hearings and the blacklist without bein’ accused.”

Herman nodded. “In retrospect, I have often wished we _had_ just continued the way we were. Maybe it would never have led to the great revolution, but at least we wouldn’t have spent the last thirty years in jail.” He sighed. “It was all Burt’s fault, if you ask me.”

That had been Arthur’s assumption already. “Tell me about it. How did a movie star end up joining a group that had been only writers?”

“One of the others brought him in. I can’t remember anymore who it was. Was it Herschel? Or…well, it doesn’t matter who. Someone in the group had written one of Burt’s pictures. I think it was—”

“I don’t know _any_ of his pictures,” Arthur said, cutting him off. “The studio burnt them all after his defection.”

“Oh, that’s a pity. They were quite nice little musicals.” Herman shook his head. “Well, that particular picture was one of the rare ones that invited the screenwriter to the wrap party. He and Burt started talking, and the next thing we knew, suddenly we were having our meetings at Burt’s spacious Malibu home.”

“Really, just like that? How did he convince a movie star, someone who reaps the unfair benefits of the system, to become a Communist?” Arthur wondered if perhaps the writer had been good-looking, and had literally seduced Gurney into it.

“That’s the beauty of it!” Herman exclaimed with a laugh. “Burt was _already_ a Communist. He’d been stationed in Russia—or was it Germany?—well, wherever he’d been, late in the war he’d gotten to know some Russian soldiers, and they’d been so persuasive that he’d come home understanding that Communism was the necessary future of mankind.” Perhaps those _soldiers_ had been the ones to seduce him. Or maybe he wasn’t quite as carnally motivated as Arthur…

“Why come home at all, then?” Arthur asked. “According to the file I saw, he’d been stationed in Berlin after the war. He could ‘ave just gone to Russia instead of coming back to America.”

Herman smiled weakly. “He embraced Communism, but not Stalin.”

“Ah.” Arthur nodded. “Yes, can’t blame him for that.” Not that Khrushchev was all that much of an improvement, but…well, he had been better than Stalin. “So, what happened when he joined your group?”

“At first, nothing but the improvement in our meeting place.” Herman sighed sadly. “There’s nothing like prison to make you appreciate the luxury of a Malibu mansion.”

“Try a basement-level flat in New York City,” Arthur suggested. “Only one room, no windows, rats in the walls, and a constant odour of mildew. Probably makes your _cell_ look like a mansion.”

Herman laughed. “That does sound dreary,” he agreed, then shook his head. “Nothing really changed for us until after Stalin died. That’s when Burt changed gears. No more simple study for him; he wanted _action_. He’s the one who brought in Professor Marcuse.”

“Right, the elderly academic who was arrested with you. What was the story there?”

“He spent decades teaching economics at Stanford. Or was it politics? Philosophy?” Herman bit his lip. “That’s odd; I’m not sure we were told what he taught at Stanford.”

Maybe he _didn’t_ teach at Stanford, and had just claimed to have done so in order to sound more impressive. Arthur would have to look that up, if he could. “And what brought him to Los Angeles? Isn’t Stanford in…uh…San Francisco?” That didn’t sound right, even as he was saying it.

Herman laughed. “No, it’s in Stanford. Which is admittedly much closer to San Francisco than it is to Los Angeles. In any case, he retired, moved down the coast, and Burt brought him into our group. He began to teach us about direct action.”

“Are we talking fomenting a revolution type of action, or just helping a movie star defect in the most over-the-top way possible?”

“We _talked_ about it all, let me assure you, but mostly it was about ways to weaken the system from within, not merely hinting at it in pictures, but actually _doing_ something about it. And yes, that did include helping Burt defect.” He shook his head. “But it wasn’t supposed to be over-the-top at all. It was supposed to be highly covert; he was going to slip away in the dead of night and the studio would never know where he had gone until Moscow suddenly and joyously announced that he was now their spokesman preaching the truth of history’s end to the ignorant fools still in America.”

“Covert?” Arthur repeated. “How is a Soviet submarine off the coast of Malibu ever supposed to be covert?”

“Submarines, Mr. Stuart, are designed not to be seen. That’s part of their purpose. Burt’s home was very remote, and it was quite late at night. They would never have known about the submarine if the police hadn’t already been on their way to the house.”

“They were already headed there? What for?”

“To arrest us,” Herman sighed. “And to recover Baird Whitlock. Though he somehow managed to leave before they got there. I never did find out how.”

“Wait, Baird Whitlock? What are you talkin’ about?”

“That really didn’t make it into the papers at all?” Herman sounded disappointed. “We had kidnapped him.”

That explained some of what Frank was saying in the car, but… “How? _Why_?” Baird Whitlock was the most typical of Hollywood stars of the 1950s: handsome, talented, alcoholic and philandering. He didn’t seem the type to be useful to a group of Communists; the system they embraced didn’t support the whole idea of money so they surely didn’t want to ransom him and yet they couldn’t have wanted to brainwash him into becoming one of their own because no one would believe it if such a poster-boy for the system suddenly turned around and announced himself the enemy of the system. That would be like Tommy Stone suddenly announcing that he was a gay iconoclast.

“We wanted to show the studio—and through it all of Capitolism—that it was weaker than it thought. We wanted to take some of its ill-gotten gains away, weaken it financially. Of course, we planned to do the same to the other studios, had it gone off well.”

“And you weren’t afraid Baird would expose you when he was rescued? I mean, you didn’t plan to kill him, surely?”

Herman chuckled, and shook his head. “Gracious, no! After we saw Burt off, when we dispersed for the evening, one of us was going to take him home. He could tell his wife that he’d been drunk in an alley all day—he had a history, you know—and all would be well, except that the studio would have paid a lot of money, and would have known it was _weak_.”

“But how were you going to stop him from telling the authorities? Or did you keep him so thoroughly bound and gagged that he couldn’t identify any of you?”

Herman smiled. “That was the beauty of it. You see, we were going to…well, it was a reverse tit-for-tat situation, if you see what I mean. If he exposed us, we exposed him.”

“Blackmail, you mean.”

“I hardly like to call it that. We had no intention of asking him for money, after all.”

“Fair enough.” That was still blackmail by every definition Arthur knew. “What did you ‘ave on him that he was so afraid you’d expose?”

Herman looked uncomfortable, and coughed slightly. “Well, we had photographs of him at our meeting, taking part in it. And he was, as Burt said he would be, very amiable and very… _pliable_. It was easy to make him see that Communism was the future, and he was very happy to sign on with us. He even paid dues.”

“He paid his kidnappers to join them.”

“Yes.”

Good God, was he a moron? That was a depressing thought! Arthur had seen some of his pictures from the ‘40s, when he was absolutely bloody gorgeous. Painful to think that someone so attractive might also be dumb as a post. “That’s certainly a unique way to keep your identities secret. But surely you couldn’t ‘ave expected to get such results every time?”

“No, we knew we wouldn’t always be so fortunate. But…well, we weren’t thinking as far ahead as we should have been. In hindsight, I have no choice but to admit that.”

Arthur nodded. “So, how did you manage to kidnap him? Did you ‘ave Burt just ask him over for tea and then not let him leave?”

Herman laughed. “No, no, that would have been very suspicious! Burt would never have dared.”

“Did he think Baird wouldn’t have gone with him because he was a homosexual?”

Herman’s eyes widened. “I’m surprised you know about that. I didn’t think any of the papers would have dared to mention even the idea.”

“They didn't,” Arthur admitted. “I found out through other means. But what was it, then? Why would Burt have been afraid to simply invite Baird over?”

“If Baird had disappeared after going over to Burt’s home some evening, then the studio would have known to blame Burt for the disappearance. Or at least to look at Burt’s house for answers the next day. Besides, he…the way he put it at the time was that he had a special someone who might be filled with jealous suspicions if he wasn’t waiting in attendance every night.”

“Very carefully not mentioning that the special someone was Laurence Laurentz.”

“Er, well, he hardly needed to; the other party’s identity was of little relevance. In any event, because we didn’t want any evidence directly implicating any of us, we made a grave error, and hired a couple of men to pose as extras on Baird’s picture, drug him, and bring him to one of us, who had procured a rental truck to bring Baird the rest of the way to Burt’s home. It was obviously their fault we were caught, but I still don’t know how the studio found out about it so quickly. They must have hired a particularly clever private detective.”

“That’s certainly quick results,” Arthur agreed. “But stepping back a bit, when exactly did he decide to defect? Or maybe I should be asking when and how he told the rest of you that he needed your help to defect.”

“He told us a few months after the professor arrived. He already had the plan almost entirely worked out even then.” Herman shook his head. “Burt must have been planning it for _years_.”

“And did his plan always involve kidnapping Baird Whitlock?”

“No, at first he wasn’t sure who to kidnap. It was vital that it be another actor from Capitol Pictures, of course.”

“Oh?” Arthur had a feeling he knew why, but it was always best to get the interviewee to spell it out.

“Of course. That way, if the police _hadn’t_ become involved, if no one had found out about the submarine, the studio would have assumed that whoever had taken Baird had taken Burt as soon as they released Baird. And it would cooperate just as readily with a second ransom note, maybe even pay several ransoms.” Herman chuckled weakly. “To be honest, Burt’s idea stopped short of any plans to have the studio pay a ransom to us as his kidnappers. But…well…we had discussed it amongst ourselves, and decided to send Baird’s ransom money with Burt to help the cause, and then feed the studio’s belief that Burt had been kidnapped by having it pay a ransom for him as well.”

“Ah, so one of the reasons the ‘ole kidnapping thing was never reported to the press is because there was no ransom money lyin’ about,” Arthur surmised.

“Precisely! Even with Baird having left on his own—probably the studio’s detective had retrieved him before the police could arrive—if there had been a suitcase lying on the table with a hundred thousand dollars in cash…well, that would have to end up in the papers, wouldn’t it?”

“A hundred thousand dollars?” Arthur repeated. “Even in 1950s money, couldn’t you ‘ave gotten much more than that for a big star like Baird Whitlock? His pictures made the studio millions every year.”

“Indeed they did, and we certainly could have gotten much more, if we’d been willing to hold onto him for more than a single day. But that was all part of Burt’s plan, you see. Baird was filming an epic at the time, with only a few days of filming left, so the studio was desperate to get him back as soon as possible—this guaranteed that they’d pay up right away—but if we asked for more money than the studio would have on the lot at any given time, there might have been delays as they scrambled to produce it. Most of the studio’s funds were stowed away in accounts that needed corporate authorization and would have required that the owner in New York be called. Burt had made subtle enquiries for months, and was quite certain that the man in charge on the studio lot—a real powerhouse for getting things done—would be able to get a hundred thousand dollars without having to call New York. Any more than that and things became more complicated.”

“Makes sense,” Arthur agreed. “Why wait until so late in the filming? Wasn’t there a risk of missing that window altogether?”

“Ah, the timing was out of our hands, I’m afraid. It depended on the availability of the submarine.”

“Of course. How did you manage to contact a Soviet submarine in the first place?”

“Again, that was Burt’s doing,” Herman said, shaking his head. “Through one of those soldiers he’d known during the war. He never said exactly when he got back in contact with his old friend, but I think it must have started up soon after Stalin died, almost certainly before he told us he wanted to defect.”

“So the soldier arranged for the submarine, then,” Arthur concluded.

“That’s right.” Herman sighed. “You wouldn’t believe how much trouble we had convincing first the authorities and then the courtroom of that. They were so convinced that we had a direct line to the Kremlin hidden away somewhere.”

Arthur laughed. “Sadly, I can just imagine them thinking that. But while we’re on the subject, tell me about the trial. An acquaintance of mine was saying that it was not only closed to the public, but to the press as well. Was anything discussed that was top secret? Things maybe someone is still trying to keep quiet?”

“No, not really,” Herman said, shaking his head. “Our defence attorneys all agreed we mustn’t bring up having kidnapped Baird Whitlock, and for some reason the prosecution didn’t mention it, either. Capitol Pictures probably requested the secret trials because they knew it was sure to come out that Burt was a homosexual, and they didn’t want the public knowing how far they had gone to cover it up. Might have made them suspect there were other stars whose perversions were being covered up by the studio.” He chuckled grimly. “Oh, and they certainly would have been right!”

“Of course they would ‘ave. No studio wanted to get rid of talented artists because outdated public _mores_ made their sexuality taboo. Every studio in Hollywood had gay stars and directors.”

“Precisely. And every studio had its secret share of Communists, too, even after the blacklist came through decimating our ranks. But what the people didn’t know…”

“…could only hurt them if they learnt about it.” That applied to almost everything, really, short of governments physically causing harm to their people. “Which is why it always seems odd that some people go out of their way to ensure that they _do_ learn about it.” That was, after all, the real reason Arthur had never attempted to spread the word about what Brian was doing with himself now. What could that accomplish other than to hurt his few remaining fans?

Herman nodded. “It’s because they’re afraid of us. Because, deep down, they know that we’re right.”

“Perhaps so,” Arthur agreed, “and yet some of the homophobes most determined to out everyone are also the most _violent_ of them.”

“Well, I was more speaking of my own situation, actually. The Capitalist fear of Communism is quite different from the…ah…from Burt’s _other_ situation…”

Arthur frowned slightly, and for half a moment actually thought about pointing out that he was also gay, but…that might cause problems with the prison officials, even if it didn’t make Herman become uncooperative. “Well…” he said, trying to stall for a moment to think of something else to ask. “Changing the subject slightly, can you think of anything about Burt Gurney’s defection that anyone would want to cover up now?”

Herman shook his head. “If Capitol Pictures was still strong, I would think they might have an eye on making sure no one remembered, but Miss Santos informed me that Capitol is no more.”

“Yes, they were bought out by Universal more than ten years ago. But news articles on the defection and on Burt Gurney’s career have been censored, removed from the historical record. If it weren’t for that fact, I might do as the police ‘ave done, and chalk Stella Santos’ disappearance up to something that happened in Los Angeles, or do as everyone else has done, and assume she was the victim of random street crime. As it is, I ‘ave to assume she vanished because she learnt something someone didn’t want her to know. Someone in power. Are you sure you can’t think of anyone who might ‘ave something to cover up?”

“I really can’t. We didn’t have any associates who weren’t on the boat with us as we took Burt to meet the submarine. Unless you count Baird Whitlock’s conversion to Communism as a secret that needs covering up.”

Arthur chuckled. “I’m sure Capitol Pictures went to great length to cover that up, and to make sure it didn’t stick, either. But Baird Whitlock hasn’t made a movie in at least a decade, and doesn’t ‘ave any political connections that I know of, so I rather doubt that’s it. I was thinking more along the lines of other people who were accused in the wake of the defection, especially any who might really ‘ave something to hide.”

“We weren’t told anything about other people who fell under suspicion. I know there were many others accused, but none of them actually _were_ Communists. It was just us. As to other things they might have wanted to cover up, I’m afraid I’d be the last person to know. We didn’t pry into the secrets of others, lest they might go prying into ours.”

“A wise policy,” Arthur said, with a resigned sigh. He’d rather learnt that the hard way with the Brian Slade story, which is why he was now under constant threat of blackmail as well as legal action.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hollywood, 1954**

The dinner scene was the sort that Laurence usually delighted in filming. Usually. It was the sort of scene that required three or four complete, perfect takes. Usually. The sort of scene where the actors strove to outdo themselves with each take, desperate to make sure that their every line would sparkle, especially in close-up. Usually.

But nothing could be as usual in _this_ dinner scene. Because nothing involving Hobie Doyle could ever be routine.

And unfortunately, the dinner scene was not one of the countless scenes that Ärne Seslum had decided to turn into musical numbers. There was no hope of a song interrupting the flat and emotionless chaos that erupted every time those uneducated lips were opened in speech. It was a pity, really, in one so attractive. He looked simply smashing in his costume. If only he didn’t have to _talk_! Truly, Hobie had missed his cue by several decades; he would have been an ideal star for the silent cinema.

If Laurence was the gambling sort, he might have placed any number of wagers on how today’s filming would go awry. Would this be another day where Hobie kept them all waiting because he was unable to dress himself in decent clothing without help? Or would he show up an hour early again, forcing them to wait while wardrobe and make-up staff were summoned to fix the damage he had caused by playing with his silly skipping rope while he waited for the rest of the cast and crew to arrive? Would he be unable to remember his lines? Would he deliver them even more flatly than usual? Would he turn an innocent question into an accusation, while delivering the accusations cheerfully? Would he use the wrong word because he didn’t know what the right one meant? Or would he, for once, deliver his dialog decently, only to have some other catastrophe strike to prevent them getting even one good take? Laurence would not have put it past the Hobie Doyle curse to cause the cameras to break down or the film to spontaneously run short.

As it transpired, Hobie arrived nearly perfectly on time for once, both his costume and make-up in perfect order. He was a tinge early, so about half of the other actors had not yet arrived. In one of the only things about his behaviour that _was_ routine, Hobie glanced around the set briefly, then headed straight for Laurence. Did he really think it necessary to check in with his director every single time he arrived on the set, or was this…

“Uh, so, Laurence, this here is one of them talkin’ scenes, ain’t it?” he asked.

“Of course it is.” No matter how much Laurence would prefer it if it were a purely silent scene.

“No chance of addin’ a song in place of all that talkin’, then?”

“None at all. The songs are all recorded already.” Had he such a short memory that he’d already forgotten recording them?

“Yassir, it’s jest…” Hobie glanced over his shoulder at the table on the set, and shuddered slightly as he looked back at Laurence. “I don’…I jest don’ know ‘bout this.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine, dear boy,” Laurence assured him with a warm smile. Some days he felt as though _he_ was the actor… “Or perhaps you think you would fare better in the scene if you shared it with your Latin lover?”

Hobie stared at him blankly. “Who?”

“What?” Surely he couldn’t be so ignorant as to be unaware of that meaning of the word ‘Latin’?

Hobie’s face contorted with puzzlement for a moment, then he laughed. “You mean Carlotta? Naw, it ain’t like that b’tween us. We’re jest friends; we’re not sweet on each other. Leastaways, _I’m_ not. Sure hope she’s not, neither, that’s be plum awful. Girls…like her aren’t fer me.”

Laurence was frightfully aware of an unbidden smile curving up the corners of his mouth. Perhaps he had not been mistaken before after all? But so what if he had not been? It was not—such a notion was neither wise nor discreet. Nor, for that matter, at all palatable! Hobie Doyle was a talentless cretin, no matter how attractive he was. The idea of—no, no, it was simply out of the question!

Not that there hadn’t been rather cretinous young men before…

But no, it was better not to think of such things. Laurence could not afford the slightest misstep. Not so soon after Burt’s treachery.

“Laurence?” Hobie’s voice broke him out of his contemplations. “Is somethin’ wrong? You look mighty put out.”

He tried to smile. “It’s nothing, dear boy. I was merely…lost in thought. Did you need something else?”

“Uh…” Hobie hesitated, looking down at his feet, encased in their brightly shined shoes. The wardrobe department must have been working overtime to keep those shoes looking so perfect every day, given the scuffing they received on Hobie’s clumsy feet. “No, I reckon not…”

“You had best take your position, then,” Laurence said, with an encouraging smile. “We have a lot to get through today, and I should like to begin as soon as the entire cast has arrived.”

A look of disappointment crossed Hobie’s face—or perhaps Laurence only flattered himself to think that was what the slight darkening implied—and he nodded. “Yassir.”

Hobie crossed the set in his ambling, bow-legged gait, and awkwardly took his seat at the table, his legs so spread apart beneath it that Laurence suspected the first thing they would have to do would be to rearrange all the chairs, or there would be no room for the two unfortunate young ladies who were supposed to be seated to either side of him. At least for the bridge scene his ghastly posture hadn’t been too much of an issue; he had merely to pull his chair a bit further away from the table to allow room for the others’ legs. And since he had been—appropriately enough—playing the dummy in the sole hand that was played in the scene, it hadn’t mattered that he was a bit further away from the table.

Over the next five minutes, most of the rest of the cast slowly filtered in, and mingled about in the vicinity of the table without anyone else sitting down. Hobie looked so dejected by their refusal to associate with him that Laurence actually found himself feeling a bit sorry for the boy. He would have to try to be a little nicer to him off the set to make up for the very reasonable irritation of the rest of the cast. After all, as miserable as Hobie’s performance already was, it could only get worse if he became emotionally unbalanced by the treatment he was receiving.

Surprisingly, Joan—that consummate professional—was the last to arrive, and there were half a dozen men in dark suits following her. She hurried over to Laurence, looking alarmed. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Laurentz,” she said quietly, “they wouldn’t leave off following me.”

“Who are they?” Laurence had a feeling he knew who they _really_ were, but he was curious as to who they claimed to be. If they had told Joan they were in the employ of some dreary government agency come to pry into Laurence’s personal affairs, she likely wouldn’t be apologising for their presence.

“They said they were—”

They didn’t wait for Joan to finish. One of the suited men walked up to Laurence and looked him up and down with a sneering expression before holding out a hand in his direction. “You must be Mr. Laurence,” he said.

“Laurentz,” Laurence corrected.

“What?”

“My name is Laur _entz_.”

“Oh, right, Mr. Laurence.” Was that an intentional snub, or was the man actually that stupid? “We represent the American League of Public Morality and Cultural Decency, and we’re checking in on all the films being shot on the Capitol Pictures lot today.” The man edged his hand a little closer to Laurence, expecting a handshake.

“Is that so.” Laurence very pointedly didn’t even _look_ at his hand, much less shake it.

“Yes, it is.” A snippy reply accompanied by the withdrawal of the offending hand. “And we’re here to check up on your picture.”

“I cannot film with you bungling about the set. But if the studio has granted you permission to be here, then I will allow you to do as you please until I am ready to begin filming for the day.” Under the circumstances, that was more than generous enough.

“You can’t make us leave,” the suited man said, a heavy threat in his voice. Then he gestured to his companions, and they began to mill about the studio, leaning in close to talk to the cast, as well as poking and prodding the set, even going so far as to attempt to open false drawers. Just what did they expect to be hidden _inside_ the scenery?

One of the suited men tugged so hard on a false drawer that the entire wall of the set started wobbling. “Hey, watch it!” Hobie leapt out of his chair, and ran over to stabilise the wall. “This here set ain’t so sturdy as all that,” he told the suited man. “Cain’t jest go pullin’ on it less’n you want the whole thing fallin’ down ‘round yer ears.”

“Thanks,” the man said, casting a suspicious gaze at Hobie. “What’re you doing here? This isn’t a western.”

“They tol’ me the studio was changin’ my image,” Hobie said, tugging at his collar.

The suited man shook his head. “This kind of picture is no good. Tell them to let you make war movies. That’s where you want to go, not this…sissy stuff.” He waved a hand to indicate the set.

“Oh, I don’ mind none,” Hobie insisted.

The suited man looked disappointed. “Why didn’t you ever sign up for the Army?” he asked. “They could have used your sure-shot skills in Korea.”

Hobie laughed uncomfortably, and shook his head. “I ain’t never shot nobody for real. Not shot at anything bigger’n a coyot’. B’sides, I’d never’a passed the physical; I know lots of bronco busters tried to sign up an’ go to fight in Germany, and they was turned away ‘cause of all them old injuries.”

“But you’re healthy as an ox!”

“I got lotsa old wounds,” Hobie insisted, then knelt and rolled up one trouser leg, revealing scar tissue in the shape of hideous gashes along his entire shin. “Got thrown offa a horse I was breakin’ in, an’ he trampled me real good. Jest ‘bout shattered the whole bone.”

The suited man looked at the scars passively, and did not seem impressed or convinced.

Undaunted by the other man’s scepticism, Hobie stood up, and without a moment’s hesitation, took off his jacket and completely unbuttoned his shirt, spreading it open to reveal his chest, and a round scar about the width of a man’s fist, passing through the right side of his stomach. “Got gored by a bull oncet, too,” Hobie said. “Hurt like the dickens, but it healed up right good, doncha think?” It was hard to concentrate on the ghastly wound, as the rather gorgeous chest exerted a far more magnetic pull on the eye. And such an easy, casual disrobing, as if he had no idea how others might react to the sight of his body.

As the suited man still stood there, regarding him with an unmoving expression, Hobie’s gaze suddenly wandered away from him, and turned in Laurence’s direction. Laurence hastily averted his own gaze, humiliated by the realisation that he had been staring. But the rest of the cast and crew were staring as well—and how could they _not_ have been staring, when he was so eagerly and inappropriately exposing himself? There was no reason for him to feel ashamed of having paid the same attention everyone else had.

“Put your clothes back on,” the suited man sighed, sounding disgusted. “Exhibitionist.”

Hobie laughed, and Laurence could hear the sound of his clothes being righted again. “Who _are_ y’all?” he asked. “What’re ya doin’ on the lot?”

“We’re representatives of the League for American Decency and Cultural Morality,” the man replied. Laurence had to stifle a laugh. They could at least have all gone to the trouble of memorising the name of the fictitious organisation they claimed to represent!

“What’re you doin’ _here_ , then?” Hobie asked. “Ain’t no pitcher on the lot more decent an’ cultural than this’n.”

“Deceit, adultery, betrayals, loose sexual morals…why, it’s got every sin short of Communism!” the man replied, with a vicious laugh. “ _Almost_ every sin.” Laurence could feel the eyes of every one of those suited men on him. Was he to be continually harassed like this for the rest of his career? Would they have been so eager to harass if Burt had been involved with a woman instead of a man?

“It ain’t like there’s none of that in the real world,” Hobie pointed out. “Why not jest go and lecture on street corners?”

Laurence had to stifle a laugh. The notion of prurient souls preaching their stifling moral code from street corners as though they were hawking newspapers was delightfully absurd.

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?” the suited man replied, in a cold, challenging tone that made Laurence look over at them with alarm.

“All I’m sayin’ is, pitchers can only show what’s in the real world, so if you don’t want people lyin’ and cheatin’ and all in pitchers, then you’d best find a way to make ‘em stop doin’ that for real first,” Hobie said, even as he directed all his attention into a futile attempt to fix his tie.

“The idea,” the suited man insisted, “is to stop giving them so many examples of bad behaviour, and that will make them stop doing it in reality.”

Hobie laughed at that, and—contrary to Laurence’s expectations—it was not a guffaw like a braying animal, but a very pleasant laugh. “If people needed pitchers to teach ‘em to lie and cheat, there’d nevera been lyin’ and cheatin’ until pitchers started bein’ made, but there’s _allus_ been lyin’ and cheatin’. Might as well try and stop the rain by wishin’ as try and stop the lyin’ by pretendin’ it ain’t there.”

By this point, most of the rest of the cast were hiding smiles behind their hands, even as the other suited men began to converge on Hobie. The burliest of them—a good head taller than Hobie and nearly half again as wide—was the first to arrive. “Are you suggesting that the American League of Public Decency is wasting its time?” he demanded, glowering down at the boy.

“Them’s not the words I’da picked,” Hobie said, “but if the boot fits…”

Nearly half the cast laughed, and the enormous man reached into the front of his suit as if he was a mobster intending to pull out a concealed pistol. His fellows hastened to grab him and pull his hand away from his jacket, implying that he did in fact have a firearm. Chaos ensued for nearly a minute as the suited men began shouting at each other and at Hobie. Order was only restored when the door to the set opened and Eddie Mannix came in, followed by one of the production assistants. Mannix walked right over to the yelling men and smiled at them in that irritating way he had that implied he _thought_ he was being friendly and conciliatory when he was being nothing of the sort. Laurence usually saw it aimed at himself—as when all his requests for a different leading man were refused—so it was a relief to see someone else bear the brunt of it.

“Gentlemen, you did promise you would do nothing to disrupt filming,” Mannix said to them. “Why don’t you come with me to the canteen, and we can discuss the problem over a cup of coffee? They serve great coffee here.”

The suited men resisted for several minutes, but eventually acquiesced to further insistence, and followed Mannix out of the studio. The production assistant turned on the rolling light as soon as they were gone. Laurence would have preferred it if he had locked the door, but hopefully they wouldn’t come back if they thought a scene was actively being shot.

As various technicians hastened about trying to fix all the places the set had been disrupted by their uninvited guests, Laurence went over to help Hobie with his tie, not wanting to have to wait for someone from wardrobe to come handle it. “Sorry,” Hobie said, with a helpless smile. “Did I say somethin’ wrong to them fellers?”

“Not at all, dear boy,” Laurence assured him, with a genuine smile. “Though you may find yourself regretting it later.”

“How so?”

“They might arrange to have your taxes audited, or some other pedestrian harassment.”

“Aw, tha’s okay,” Hobie said, chuckling. “The studio hires someone to do ‘em for me.”

“Yes, I suppose they would.” Pity they didn’t go to that length for their directors as well as their actors; the American tax code was quite obtuse, and accountants drearily expensive. Laurence put the finishing touch on the bow tie. “There, how’s that? Not too tight, is it?”

“It’s ‘bout the same as it allus is,” Hobie said, with a weak smile. “Still bit tight, but I can breathe jest fine.”

Laurence nodded. “You should have a word with Miriam in wardrobe. Perhaps she can find a solution that will make it less uncomfortable for you.”

“I will, thanks.” Hobie smiled brightly, and cast an eye over at the set. Laurence could still hear the set dressers repairing the damage caused by the government strong-arms. “Say, uh…they’re, um, next couple’a days are all them girls doin’ their number, yeah?”

“That’s right, you have a few days off.” And Laurence would have a bit of a rest as well, having little to do but watch as Seslum handled the musical number. He had to be there to make sure nothing went amiss and no one misunderstood the scene or the characters, but he wasn’t expecting to have to _do_ anything.

“You’ll be off, too, right? ‘Cause that’s all Mr. Seslum, ain’t it?”

“I’ll still be on set.”

“Oh.” Hobie frowned. “I’d thought mebbe I could show you my ranch. Wull…still, mebbe I could fix us up some grub at my place in town. I’m a right expert with a steak or a plate of beans!”

A…plate of beans…? The notion—especially considering what type of beans Hobie would eat—was nauseating in the extreme. And yet, hadn’t he just thought to himself that he needed to try to be a little nicer to Hobie off the set…? “Well…I…” But could he force himself to accept such an offer?

“And mebbe after I could show you how I ride,” Hobie added, with a roguish grin.

“We’ll see, dear boy.”

***

**New York City, 1984**

The more research Arthur did at the library, the more certain he was that Stella Santos had been disappeared to cover up someone else who was implicated in Burt Gurney’s defection, probably someone else who worked on his movies. The good thing about that conclusion was that it gave his research a definite direction to head in. The bad thing was, without access to copies of the movies, he was rather at loose ends. It was true that there were other things she might have discovered that would discomfit those in power—the more he looked at the history of the blacklist and anti-Communist sentiment in the wake of the defection, the more certain he was that it had started a slow, spiralling descent (a spiral that was anything but decadent) to the wretched police state that America had become under Reynolds—but that sort of information was so nebulous that trying to police it would have been all but impossible.

He _could_ try going to have a look at the surviving prints of Gurney’s pictures at the Library of Congress, as Stella had done, but that would raise the odds that whoever had taken her would become aware of Arthur following the trail of her disappearance. And that was a really excellent way to become the next victim. If he could get somewhere that he could make a phone call and feel 100% sure that no one was going to be listening in, he could call someone back home and see if they could locate copies of some Gurney pictures and check over the credits for names that seemed significant, but that felt like a shot in the dark at best. If Capitol Pictures was still around, Arthur could check their records, but he doubted Universal had kept the records when it bought out Capitol. Especially if someone with the power to censor library collections wanted those records destroyed.

The only things he could think of to do would be to interview anyone still around who might have known something. He could follow Stella to Los Angeles, and try to figure out who she might have been there to talk to. Given the circled article about Laurence Laurentz in her files, she had probably intended to interview him, assuming he was still alive and/or not dying of AIDS in some miserable hospice somewhere. Now that Arthur knew about the rather odd kidnapping escapade that preceded Gurney’s defection, interviewing Baird Whitlock also seemed a possibility, and yet it also seemed unlikely to bear any useful fruit.

All his options were still rotating and gyrating in his brain by the time Arthur got back to the flat, with no solution in sight. He set his satchel down on the dining room table, then went to the kitchen to put the kettle on. It wasn’t that he was especially in need of a cup, but maybe it would help settle his mind. And at least it was something to do, a physical activity (however slight) into which he could channel his nervous energy. He hadn’t half filled the kettle when Curt came in.

“You look stressed,” he commented, as he fetched a can of beer from the refrigerator.

“That’s puttin’ it mildly,” Arthur sighed.

Curt shook his head and took the kettle away from him, dumping the water back into the sink again. “Then tea isn’t what you need right now.”

Arthur grimaced. He wasn’t sure if Curt was going to suggest alcohol or sex (or both), but either way the same objection rose immediately to his lips: “It’s the middle of the afternoon.”

“Who cares?” Curt pushed his beer into Arthur’s hand, then grabbed a second one. “C’mon.”

Arthur thought about objecting again, but decided against it. If Curt was just going to push a beer on him, then it wasn’t worth fighting it. He could have a little of the beer and then go back to working on his story. It was only if Curt also wanted a shag that things were going to interfere with work…

…and it soon looked like that was going to be the case, because Curt was headed straight for the bedroom. However, by the time Arthur followed him into the room, Curt had already moved past the bed and was opening the door out onto the deck. Surely he didn’t want to have sex outside in the daylight? Even with the vines on the trellis, there wasn’t enough privacy for _that_!

But no, that wasn’t what Curt was after, either. He set down his beer and slid the top off the hot tub, turning on the bubbles. “Help me get this sling off,” Curt said, glancing at Arthur over his shoulder.

“Curt, is this really a good idea?”

“Of course it is! I can’t get in the hot tub with this fucking sling on,” Curt said, looking at Arthur as if he was an idiot. “Besides, they _said_ I was supposed to take it off for bathing and fucking.”

“They didn’t say anything about fucking,” Arthur corrected him, even as he helped remove the sling from Curt’s bad arm. At this point, the muscle tone was starting to come back again—though it still looked a bit withered compared to his good arm—and the scars were…well, the scars would probably never be anything but horrifying. The surgical scars were bad enough, but the entry and exit wounds from the bullet were enough to make Arthur’s heart stop just looking at them.

“It was implied,” Curt insisted.

“I must ‘ave missed _that_ instruction.” Arthur shook his head. “You want help gettin’ your kit off?”

“Only if you want to fuck _before_ we get in.”

Arthur laughed. “No, thank you. I don’t want people watchin’ us.”

“What fun is that?”

They quickly disrobed and got into the hot tub, cuddling close despite the heat of the water. Autumn was beginning to put a bit of nip in the air in the afternoon.

Curt took a long swig from his beer, then slipped his arm around Arthur’s shoulders. “So tell me what’s got you so stressed out.”

“This story I’m workin’ on.”

“I know _that_ already.”

Arthur laughed nervously, and reluctantly explained what he was up against with this story. “At this point, I ‘ave to just go about trying to research her story and see what it was about it that made someone want to be rid of her. Only how to do that without the same thing happening to me…”

“Well, if that guy’s defection set things in motion that led to Reynolds’ election, couldn’t someone have wanted to stop her saying so?” Curt suggested.

“In theory, they could ‘ave, but it doesn’t make sense. To anyone who supports Reynolds, that isn’t a bad thing, after all. They’d look at it as the positive progress of history.”

“Yeah, guess so,” Curt agreed. “What do you plan to do, then?”

“Only thing I really _can_ do is go to Los Angeles and ask around, both about Stella and about her story. And that’s exactly why I don’t ‘ave time for this right now.”

“Why not?”

“I ‘ave to call Mr. Nathan and see if he’ll advance me the money for a plane ticket to California, of course,” Arthur said. And then he would have to spend the whole time he was on the west coast fretting about whether Curt would forget him while he was gone.

Surprisingly, Curt laughed at that. “C’mon, who are you talking to here?”

“What?”

“You think I can’t swing tickets to L.A.?”

“I’m not askin’ you to pay for airplane tickets.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t planning on paying for them myself,” Curt said, with a chuckle. “Give me a couple days, and we can probably go by private jet.”

“That seems excessive.”

“Well, yeah, but without going through an airline, there’s no way you’ll trigger any alarms that what’s-her-face set off. Not to mention there’s no commercial airport where they could make off with you without anyone noticing.”

Arthur bit his lip, looking desperately for some fallacy in Curt’s logic. Unfortunately, he didn’t really see one. He was quite sure that buying tickets to Los Angeles would never set off any alarm bells, metaphorical or otherwise, but if he _was_ already under surveillance (not that he had noticed any) they wouldn’t have the advance warning of his plans if no commercial airline was involved. “Just who are you expecting to pay for this private jet?” he asked.

“The label, of course.”

“And you really think they would?”

“Of _course_ they would.” Curt laughed. “Phil’s been deluged with offers to do TV interviews and shit. Sure, about half the talk shows in the country are filmed in town here, but the other half are filmed in L.A. Some of the other artists I’ll be working with for the benefit are based in SoCal, too.”

Arthur bit his lip. Was it acceptable to let his lover provide him that kind of private, special transport for a story? Wasn’t that the sort of thing that could get him kicked out of press clubs?

Then again, there weren’t many rules of journalism that he hadn’t already violated with that personal column he wrote right after the attack…

“All right,” Arthur sighed. “You win, love.”

“Of course I do.” Curt kissed him briefly. “So…how long are we gonna stay there?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Any ideas who you’re even gonna want to talk to?”

“Not entirely. Anyone easy to get to who’s connected to Capitol Pictures, I suppose.”

Curt laughed. “Oh, I know a good one!” he exclaimed. “Used to be one of their big stars.”

Arthur nodded, wondering if that was the same ‘50s heartthrob Curt had serviced at a party back in the early ‘70s. “And I’ll want to go to the Los Angeles library and see if their newspaper collections ‘ave been censored the way New York’s ‘ave been. Though if Reynolds has anything to do with it, they surely ‘ave been.” California was Reynolds’ home state, after all. The authors of the articles written at the time had assumed that was the main reason Reynolds had shifted the HUAC’s focus back away from Hollywood, but if there was a more personal reason…

“That’s all pretty vague.”

“I know,” Arthur admitted. Or perhaps it was more of a lament. “The only specific person I can think of that might be useful to talk to—the one person I’m sure Stella would ‘ave gone to see—I don’t even know if he’s still alive or still livin’ in Los Angeles, or—”

“Who?”

“Laurence Laurentz.”

Curt laughed again. “Yeah, he’s still around. I can get you in touch with him easy.”

Arthur smiled, and gave Curt a brief kiss. “You really do know everyone, don’t you?”

“That’s just what happens when you’re a star.”

Arthur sighed happily, snuggling in closer. “Lucky me.”

“And you _are_ gonna show me how grateful you are, right?” Curt asked, sliding his hand off Arthur’s shoulder and down along his side towards his arse.

“Gladly,” Arthur agreed, reaching over to fondle Curt’s cock, which responded delightfully to his touch.


	6. Chapter 6

Even in September, Los Angeles was quite hot. Unreasonably so. No matter what other people seemed to think, Arthur did not agree that palm trees and ocean views were a good trade-off for lovely cool weather. Particularly not the ocean views; there was no shortage of coastlines in more temperate climates.

Curt’s label had rented them a suite in a particularly fancy hotel, and given them two days to themselves before Curt’s first television appearance was scheduled. So on that first free day, Curt called their driver (also provided by the label, of course), and instructed him to drive them to an address which proved to be up in the hills on a curving road above a canyon. As they drove along the road, Arthur could catch glimpses of expensive mansions hidden among the trees. Eventually, the car slowed down, and turned onto what Arthur took at first to be a narrow road, but soon understood to be the private drive of one of those mansions.

Following a hairpin turn that must have been frightful after dark, the house came into view. It was a very large and fine manor house, not merely in a classic style that would have seemed quite at home in the English countryside, but in such a _familiar_ style that Arthur felt as though he’d been there on a school outing as a boy. It had an elaborate garden in front in a classic English style, and the open door of the garage revealed a beautiful 1930s Rolls Royce.

Curt and Arthur got out of the car as soon as it came to a stop, and headed for the door. “Is this all right?” Arthur asked. “Just droppin’ in unannounced like this?”

“It’ll be fine,” Curt assured him. “Don’t worry so much.”

“But…”

Curt ignored his objections, and knocked on the door. Almost immediately, the sound of barking started on the other side of the door, followed by muffled reprimands addressed to the animal. The door was soon opened by a man in his fifties, with dark hair shot through with a bit of gray. He was decidedly handsome—though his skin had an unpleasant leathery look that said he had spent a great deal of his early life in the sun—and a bit familiar, though Arthur couldn’t quite place him.

“Curt Wild!” the man exclaimed, with a decided twang in his voice. “We’ve shore all been worried ‘bout you!” With surprising care not to touch Curt’s wounded arm, the man gave Curt a big hug. “Least they caught the varmint,” he added, with a winning smile.

Arthur wasn’t sure if it was the smile, the accent or the rather offbeat vocabulary that let him come to the perplexing realisation that the man who lived in this decidedly English house was one of the most _un-_ English people in Hollywood: Hobie Doyle, the Singing Cowboy. More perplexing still was why Curt expected Hobie Doyle to know how to reach a director he had only worked with once, thirty years ago.

“What brings ya all the way out here?” Hobie asked. “An’ who’s yer friend?”

Curt laughed. “Sorry, Hobie. This is my boyfriend, Arthur,” he explained, putting his arm around Arthur’s waist. “He’s a reporter, and he wanted to talk to Laurence Laurentz.”

Hobie nodded, and turned a smile at Arthur. “Nice to meetcha,” he said, offering a hand. “C’mon in.” He stepped aside, but they hadn’t even managed to enter the house before two beagles ran up to them, one barking and snarling, and the other trying to shove its nose into their privates. “Here, stop that! Down, boy! Gitcher nose outta there, Oscar!” Hobie grabbed the friendly beagle by his collar, and pulled him away from Curt. “Stop yer shoutin’ there, Will. These is friends! Friends!”

The friendly beagle sat down obediently by Hobie’s feet, his tail still wagging madly, but the unfriendly one sniffed in a manner that seemed almost haughty, then trotted off into the house.

Hobie smiled apologetically at them. “Sorry ‘bout that. Will don’t like nobody but my fella.” He shrugged. “C’mon an’ I’ll introduce ya.” He started walking into the house in the same direction the beagle had gone.

The house was impeccably decorated, and surprisingly clean considering the number of dogs living in it. (Arthur wasn’t entirely sure how many there were, but he caught sight of at least one more through an open doorway.) The décor inside, like the entire exterior, seemed to have taken its inspiration in the fine manor houses of the English nobility, though at least without the Victorian extravagance on display in the manors that were opened up to the public on viewing days to supplement the meagre incomes of nobles who refused to work for a living. This household seemed to particularly delight in dogs: Staffordshire porcelain dogs were on every mantel and a number of shelves, and many of the paintings and photographs on the walls either were _of_ dogs or contained them.

“Uh…were there this many dogs before?” Curt asked, looking around at the room they were passing through.

“Naw,” Hobie said, with a sigh. “He’s been buyin’ more an’ more dogs lately,” he added, in a stage whisper. “Gettin’ old, I reckon.”

Curt didn’t reply, and Hobie continued to lead them on until they found themselves in a sitting room that commanded a magnificent view down the side of the hill and looking out all the way to the distant ocean. There were two beagles in the room, lying at the feet of its sole human occupant, an elderly man about the age of Arthur’s former editor, though this fellow looked to be taller and thinner. The man looked up at them with curiosity that turned into disdain—or possibly disgust—at the sight of Curt.

“What is _he_ doing here?” he asked, in a particularly snippy tone, and with an accent that certainly explained a lot about the house’s décor.

“You don’ have to be jealous,” Hobie said, with a warmth that seemed inappropriate to the sentiment. “Curt just came by to bring this here young fella to see you.”

Wait… _what_?

The man in the chair turned his disdainful gaze towards Arthur. “I suppose you’re another miserable lout to whom the Queen’s English is a foreign language.”

Arthur smiled. “No, sir, but I’m afraid all I can produce is the Lancashire variety.”

A warm smile broke out across the seated man’s face. “Well, this is—Hobie, do be a dear and fetch us some tea.”

“Shore thing.” Hobie turned to look at Curt. “Want to give me a hand?”

Curt glanced uncomfortably over at Arthur, then nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

They both left the room together, and Arthur looked back at the elderly man in front of him, who was staring after them with a decidedly jealous expression. Now that he was over the shock and confusion of the revelation, Arthur _could_ see the resemblance between this withered, white-haired fellow and the most recent photograph he had seen of Laurence Laurentz, taken in the mid-1960s. The idea of someone so refined and cultured being in what was evidently a very long-standing relationship with Hobie Doyle, of all people, was mind-boggling, though. (Even without the bizarre revelation that Hobie Doyle—reputed to be quite a lady-killer—was actually gay.)

“You don’t ‘ave to be jealous,” Arthur said, finding the older man’s jealous expression a bit worrisome. “Curt and I are…” He wasn’t actually quite sure how to finish the sentence. He didn’t, after all, really believe that Curt took him seriously, so how could he claim otherwise?

“I’m not jealous,” Laurentz claimed, waving a hand in front of him weakly. “It is far more complex than simple jealousy.” He glanced over at Arthur, and frowned. “Do sit down, please. But look out for dog hair.”

Arthur nodded, and brushed off the seat of a nearby chair before sitting in it. “What is it, if it’s not jealousy?”

Laurentz chuckled, a weak and mirthless sound. “It must have been fourteen years ago now, at one of the last parties we held here. Parties of a particular sort, you understand.”

“Yes, I believe so. How did Curt describe them? ‘Pants-optional,’ I think were his words.”

“Precisely.” Laurentz shook his head. “They’re far more rare now, of course, but they were a necessity in years past. A motion picture star could never risk going to a bar or club that might be raided; that would ruin his career! I held parties at least once a month for decades, whether I had a partner at the time or not. When I did have one, I always held a very simple rule that at such parties, he or I could engage in oral sex with others, but anything further would be a betrayal.” He smiled grimly. “In retrospect, I’m quite glad of that policy. It’s probably saved both our lives.”

Arthur nodded. “Probably so.” Gay bars back in New York occasionally saw flurries of rumours of some icon of Hollywood past who had taken mysteriously ill with a disease that his representative(s) refused to admit was AIDS.

“Of course, the guests did not always understand or agree with my policy regarding how much my partner or I could indulge in other men.” He cast another jealous glance in the direction of the door Curt had left through. “It had been bad enough to see that young man paying such attentions to Hobie at all—watching those arms riddled with needle marks caressing _my_ —” Laurentz cut himself off abruptly, and shook his head. “That was bad enough, but then he had the gall to insist that I was much too old, that Hobie shouldn’t waste his time on me due to my age…” He sighed. “I understand that I am an old man now. Believe me, no one is more aware of that than I. But if—I have been painfully aware for many years now that if Hobie should leave me, I will be utterly alone in my dotage. I have no family, and very few remaining friends who haven’t succumbed to AIDS, alcoholism or simple old age. Perhaps it is selfish of me, but I dread the notion of dying alone.”

“That’s not selfish at all,” Arthur assured him. “But you don’t ‘ave to worry. Curt’s sober now—aside from a little alcohol—and he’s matured a lot since then, no matter what his managers ‘ave made him do and say in public.”

“I certainly hope so.”

They fell into an awkward silence that continued until Curt and Hobie returned to the room. Hobie was carrying a tray with a teapot, two cups, and a small plate of biscuits, while Curt was using his good arm to carry a folding tray stand. Once the stand and tray were set down between the two chairs, in easy reach of both of them, Hobie patted Laurentz’ hand. “Some of the dogs’re gettin’ restless. Me and Curt are gonna go out in the yard and toss some sticks ‘round for ‘em.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Laurentz agreed, giving Hobie’s hand a gentle squeeze. While he watched them leave the room again, Arthur poured the tea. “Oh, thank you, dear boy,” Laurentz said, accepting the cup Arthur offered him. “Ah…I don’t believe I caught your name.”

“Oh, yes, we skipped that, didn’t we?” Arthur let out a nervous laugh. He really was rubbish at this sometimes… “It’s Arthur Stuart.”

“And what did you want to speak to me about, Mr. Stuart?”

“Well, it’s…uh…a bit odd. I’m workin’ as a freelance journalist for the Nathan Journalism Group,” he explained, “and I was wonderin’ if one of Mr. Nathan’s other freelancers came to interview you last month. A woman by the name of Stella Santos.”

“No, I’ve not spoken to the press in years. No one seems to remember I ever existed at all,” Laurentz replied with an air of wistful melancholy. “But why come such a long way to ask a question like that?”

“Ah…that’s…well…” Uncomfortably, Arthur explained the entire story about the disappearance of Stella Santos, and how he was forced to pursue the story she had been working on in the hopes of tracking down her own story.

“That is certainly distressing,” Laurentz said, frowning. “But I’m curious as to what made you think she would have come to me about it.”

Arthur smiled uncomfortably. “Well…I…one of the papers I found in her flat was the transcript of an interrogation that said you and Burt Gurney were…uh…was that wrong?”

Laurentz laughed. “No, I’m sorry to say it was not. However, as the media were always quite reluctant to admit that men such as ourselves existed, I was not expecting anyone so young as yourself would be aware of the affair.”

“I’d never ‘ave suspected if I hadn’t seen that transcript,” Arthur agreed, nodding. He paused a moment, biting his lip. “Ah…do you…if the subject comes up, in my article…would you prefer your name be left out of it?”

“I…” Laurentz sighed. “I shall have to think about it,” he went on, after a moment’s further pause. “You must understand that the way Hollywood was at the time, there was no need for us to hide it, so long as we made no overt public gestures.”

“An open secret,” Arthur furnished.

“Precisely.”

“To request that it be kept secret would imply that I felt shame.” He shook his head. “I regret being duped by Burt, but I cannot force myself to feel ashamed our former relationship.” He laughed. “It’s…complicated.”

“I’m sure it is,” Arthur agreed, not sure precisely what about that Laurentz found funny. “If you’d like, I can call you when I’ve written up the first draft of the article, read it to you over the phone, see if you think you’d rather not ‘ave your name in it.”

“Yes, please do,” Laurentz agreed, with a pleasant smile. “Now, what was it you wanted to know?”

Arthur bit his lip. That was always the hard question on this story! “Well, I suppose, to start with, do you remember anyone else fallin’ under suspicion right after Gurney’s defection? Especially at Capitol Pictures.”

“I believe they ended up questioning almost everyone on the lot, from the management all the way to the security guards.” Laurentz smiled, and shook his head. “For the most part, they focussed their attention on the people Burt spent the most time with.”

“And who would that ‘ave been? Other than yourself, obviously.”

“They questioned Ärne Seslum extensively, of course. He directed more than half of Burt’s pictures, on top of which he—like myself—was not an American by birth.”

“Where was he from?”

“Sweden.”

“Oh, but that’s a NATO country,” Arthur said, frowning. “That shouldn’t ‘ave excited them much.”

“Nor should my own nationality, but it definitely did.”

Arthur sighed. “Things ‘aven’t actually changed that much.” He definitely got hassled more by the authorities around New York than his American co-workers ever had. “Anyone else?”

“The girl who did his make-up and several in the wardrobe department also saw extensive questioning.”

“Really? Why?” The make-up girl made sense, since he’d have spent so much time with her while she was working on him day after day, but the wardrobe people would surely have been infrequent visitors!

Laurentz smiled sadly. “One of the signs that I was far more desperate to be loved than I would have been willing to admit.”

“Er…I don’t…”

“Burt had—has—a tattoo on his chest, just above his heart.”

“Of what?” Surely it wasn’t something absurdly obvious like a hammer and sickle…

“It’s a name, written in the Cyrillic alphabet.” Laurentz sighed. “He told me it was the name of a soldier he had an affair with in Berlin while he was stationed there just after the war ended. And I didn’t have the sense to doubt his story.”

“And…was it? Or did you learn later it said something else?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea what it said. He might have been telling the truth for all I know. But the fact that he had it written there in the Cyrillic alphabet instead of our own speaks volumes, surely.” He frowned. “All the more so given what he named his dog.”

“His dog?”

“As you might have noticed, I am quite fond of dogs.” Laurentz gestured around the room, at the beagles (another one had wandered into the room at some point) and all the canine art on the walls and shelves. “Burt and I first spoke at a studio party, talking half the night about nothing but dogs. His own dog was a…ah…I must be getting old; I’m not sure what it was. A vile little Havanese, I believe, hair trimmed short to keep it clean and yet it always looked like it had just run through a mud puddle.” He shook his head. “Vile, whatever it was. Hated me, of course. Hated everyone, really. And do you know what he had named the little monstrosity?”

“Marx?” Arthur suggested, trying not to laugh. As clues go, that would certainly be a big one.

Laurentz laughed. “Close. He named it Engels.”

Good grief, Arthur hadn’t been serious. “And how did he try to explain _that_?” At least if it had been Marx, he could have claimed he’d named it after Groucho…

“Said he had been so moved after reading _The Condition of the Working Class in England_ that he just had to honour its author. Perhaps he was even telling the truth, but if I had not been quite so…smitten…I might have realised just what an alarming statement that was.”

Arthur shuddered. “I hated reading that thing.”

“Why read it at all, then?”

“It was assigned in a class on journalism. Only class my university had on the subject.” Arthur scowled. “And I was the only Manchester lad in a whole room full of Southerners.”

Laurentz laughed. “That must have been quite miserable.”

“Barely begins to cover it.”

“You know, I was a northern lad myself, many long years ago.”

“Really? Your official biography said you were from London.”

“Yes, well…I had reason to lie. Or I thought I did.” Laurentz looked down at the dogs sleeping by his feet. “My father kept the hounds on the estate of an Earl.”

“Oh, the Earl of—” Arthur started, as he had always wondered if Laurentz was any relation to the earl who shared his last name.

“I was just the same age as the Earl’s eldest son—even shared his lessons with him. We did everything together. Even fell in love together.” He sighed sadly. “It was perfect, until the day my father walked in on us.”

Arthur winced. “I know how awful that is,” he agreed. Though at least in his case no one else was implicated…

“I was terrified that he would tell his lordship, and that I might suffer some horrible punishment. So I fled as far as I could. Signed on with a merchant marine ship—this was while the war was still going, you understand—and jumped ship as soon as we put into port in New York.” Laurentz smiled weakly. “I gave a false name on arrival, my own first name and my lover’s last name. In case he should follow me across the sea.”

“Did he?” Arthur asked, since the current earl was nearly ten years younger than the man sitting before him.

“He was already dead by the time the boat arrived. I only found out months later.” Laurentz shut his eyes sadly. “Officially, the story was that he had committed suicide because his feeble health did not permit him to go fight on the fields of France where his friends were dying in droves. But he wasn’t sickly, and he had never been sent away to public school; _I_ was his only friend. I never learnt if he had killed himself because I left, or out of shame at what we had done together, or if he had been killed by his father. I’ve always hated myself for never finding out what really happened to him.”

Arthur bit his lip. How in the world was he supposed to say _anything_ after an anecdote like that? None of his lovers had ever committed suicide (and especially not over him), and the only thing his father had caught him at was having a wank over a photo of two rock stars feigning oral sex on stage. His entire life seemed utterly frivolous in comparison to what Laurentz had gone through just during WWI alone…

“Ah, I’m sorry. You wanted to talk about Burt.”

Arthur nodded, uncomfortably. “Um…” He still didn’t have any idea what to say.

“I don’t know that there is much to tell that an ordinary newspaper would be willing to print.” Laurentz smiled. “They would hardly like to talk about the pleasures two men can find in each other.”

“No, they certainly don’t,” Arthur agreed sadly. “So…um…was it just physical between you, or…?”

“Not entirely, and yet also yes, much of it was physical, on my end at least. Burt was excessively attractive, and a dancer’s lithe, limber body can be quite the miracle.”

Arthur chuckled. “Yes, I dated a dancer once.”

“A Broadway star?”

“A Broadway wannabe,” Arthur corrected. “Brilliant dancer, decent singer, terrible actor.”

Laurentz laughed, and looked out the window at the yard, where Hobie and Curt were playing with the dogs. “Sometimes terrible actors make the best lovers.”

“Um…?”

“Do you know what the difference is between Hobie and Burt?”

“Other than everything?”

Another laugh. “The most striking difference, in the cores of their souls, is that Hobie is entirely honest. He cannot lie to save his life. Which is, of course, one of several reasons that he is utterly incompetent as an actor. But after Burt’s backstabbing and deception, that flawless honesty was even more attractive than his pretty face.”

“Backstabbing?” Arthur repeated. Deception he understood, but he wasn’t sure what about Burt Gurney’s defection had been backstabbing, per se.

“Yes, I suppose none of it ever became known. There was…an incident. A moment of weakness on my part, many years before I even met Burt.” A bitter laugh. “For that matter, I suppose Burt wasn’t too much more than a child at the time.” Laurentz shook his head. “I don’t know if you’re aware of one of my early films, _On Wings as Eagles_?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve seen that one,” Arthur told him. “It was quite good.” Or at least he remembered it that way. But he’d been at least half stoned when he saw it, and may have spent half the picture in a sex coma…

“The vital role of the youngest pilot was the devil to cast. The casting director had narrowed it down to a few young men, and we all heard them audition, working with the other actors. One of them gave the best audition, but I’d seen his work before and didn’t think he was up to anything beyond what was in that audition. On top of which, his chemistry with the others was nonexistent. Of course, the casting director wanted him, because he had a history in the business. But then there was the unknown young man, so handsome, so passionate, and so flawed in his performance! I could see the seed of his talent there, waiting to be nurtured and to grow…” Laurentz sighed sadly. “I allowed myself to try what other directors do all the time with ingénues they find promising—or at least attractive.”

“You…uh…you mean…?”

“I believe the typical term is the casting couch.”

Arthur’s eyes widened. “You…with the young Baird Whitlock…?”

Laurentz nodded. “Just that once, I could not force myself to resist the privilege that others took all the time.”

“Yeah…I…if I’d been in your place, I might ‘ave done the same.” The only question about it, really, was whether Arthur could ever have that kind of nerve.

Laurentz smiled. He’d probably never heard _that_ response before. “I’d been right about him, of course. He’s a gifted actor, and he grew greatly under my tutelage, emerging as Capitol Pictures’ next big star. But evidently he was ashamed of what he had done to repay me for overriding the casting director’s decision. I learnt years later that the studio had been covering up countless rumours about it ever since. Burt had heard about it somehow, and had asked me repeatedly if it was true.” He frowned, shaking his head. “I should never have told him. He used that secret against me, and against Baird.”

“Wait…do you mean…when I interviewed one of his Communist writer friends in prison, he said they’d kidnapped Baird Whitlock and planned to blackmail him with his quasi-conversion to Communism, but…do you mean they actually wanted to blackmail him with that?”

“That is certainly what Eddie Mannix told me after the fact.” Laurentz shrugged. “I see no reason to doubt it. Worse still, Burt hadn’t just told his ‘comrades.’ He had also sold the story to a particularly unpleasant shrew of a gossip columnist. It was a very near thing; another day and she would have published the whole story.”

“Wait…but if she published it, wouldn’t that have meant there was nothing stopping Baird from exposing the other Communists?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Laurentz agreed.

“Why would he have betrayed his allies like that?”

“Perhaps he didn’t think they were serious about Communism after all.” Laurentz laughed bitterly. “Or maybe he had simply had all he could take of them. They were every man of them idiots.”

“Ah.”

Laurentz smiled crookedly. “They might have lucked out even if the story _had_ been run. Baird is a talented actor, but a complete buffoon. It might not have even occurred to him to turn them in after the story was exposed by a third party.”

“Oh.” That was a depressing thing to learn! “Did he ever come under suspicion in the wake of the defection?”

“No, the government seemed to accept that he was a victim through and through.” Laurentz scowled. “Even _they_ had been told about my solitary lapse in moral judgment. Miserable affair, from start to finish.”

“Hmm.” Arthur glanced down at his notes, and didn’t see anything particularly useful in them. “It doesn’t seem very likely, but do you think there’s any chance Stella’s disappearance was intended to cover up something about Baird Whitlock’s involvement, or about his…um…acquiescence?”

“I find it hard to imagine.”

Arthur nodded. “Yeah, me too,” he agreed. “I feel like I’m missin’ something big that’s starin’ me right in the face…” He looked away from his notes suddenly at the feeling of something on his knee, and found himself staring right into the face of a particularly large dog—not a beagle this time, but a larger breed—which was resting its front paws on his knee to get a better look at him. The shock might have made him drop his notebook.

Laurentz laughed. “You aren’t very familiar with dogs, are you, Mr. Stuart?”

“I’m afraid not,” Arthur admitted, trying to right himself again. “I wanted one when I was a boy, of course, my but father hated animals.”

“They are wonderfully loyal, and although they often seem dim-witted to those who don’t know them well, they understand human nature far better than most people do.” He turned to look out the window at Hobie again. “Some people are like that, too. Innocents from whose mouths the truth sometimes flows.”

So this was going to be one of _those_ interviews. A few minutes of useful, coherent conversation, followed by spontaneous and bizarre statements that had absolutely no usefulness whatsoever. At least in this case, he had the excuse of old age to explain his behaviour.

“I don’t imagine you can say that about your barbarian,” Laurentz commented.

“Well…there’s certainly nothing innocent about Curt,” Arthur said, with a slight tug at his collar. “But it’s really only his stage persona that seems dim-witted. Anyone who gets to talk to the real Curt knows he’s very sharp. When he’s sober.”

“Hmph.” Laurentz shook his head. “It is not just that which I object to. Do you know, I was born on the day Oscar Wilde died?”

“Er…I hadn’t been aware of that, no.” The profile he’d been given had only given a year of birth, not a day. And Arthur hadn’t exactly memorised the date of Oscar Wilde’s death in any case.

“I was, though obviously that meant nothing to me until many years later. I first learnt it when I was reading one of his plays during lessons, but it wasn’t until I realised I was in love with my sole friend that I took the lesson of his life to heart.”

“I’m not sure I…”

“Oscar Wilde was a brilliant playwright and an excellent poet, but he was a fool in his personal life,” Laurentz said harshly. “Flaunting his true nature like that, even in deliberate spite of a Marques, for which he suffered and died in ignominy. I promised myself that I would never suffer that fate—that I would learn from his mistakes and lead a better, longer life.” He sighed. “That, of course, was one of the reasons I fled the country when I feared his lordship would find out his son and I were lovers. I didn’t want to meet Oscar Wilde’s fate so early in my life.”

“I see….?” Arthur wondered if he should try to break up this story or just let it run its course.

“I lived through so many decades when it was still ‘the love that dares not speak its name,’ not only illegal but so taboo that none would speak of it without the subject being forced upon them, and I learned that the best and only way for us to make our way in this world was to ensure that we did not upset those who judged us so harshly. They would look the other way because they preferred to do so; they would not act against us because that would require them to acknowledge we exist.”

“Um…” Arthur wondered if he should point out that ‘they’ only looked the other way for exceptionally wealthy or talented individuals, not the entire gay community.

“All those years, all that safety and surety, was shattered by your generation, who wanted to be both acknowledged and accepted.” Laurentz frowned, with a small sigh. “While I understand to a certain extent, I cannot agree that it was the right idea. But at least the activists all wanted normal lives—in the open, but mostly living the same life as the majority. It wasn’t until…” He gestured towards Curt in the yard, with a look of contempt on his face. “…certain _performers_ decided to emulate Oscar Wilde and ponce about in the most obscene fashion…!”

“Mr. Laurentz, Curt and Brian weren’t—they were trying to make the straight people understand, to truly _accept_ us as we are.”

“Absurd! Or are you saying that your _true_ self goes about wearing make-up and sparkling clothing?”

Arthur winced. “Not now, but…at the time, that sort of gear felt as natural as breathing to me.”

Laurentz looked appalled for a moment, then sighed. “You think I’m an old fool.”

“No, of course not. A bit…old-fashioned…but…”

Laurentz chuckled. “I know I’m old. You don’t have to lie about it.”

“Honestly, even at the time, we were in the minority. I’d be surprised if it was even a third of the young people in Britain who were caught up in the glam movement. And the numbers in the rest of the world were even smaller.”

“And yet you claim it felt natural to you?”

“I suppose that doesn’t make much sense, but yes.” Arthur smiled weakly. “The first time I saw Brian perform on the telly—even before he told the world he was bisexual, even before I’d completely accepted my own sexuality—I couldn’t help lookin’ at him and thinking that there was what I wanted to be, _how_ I wanted to be.” He bit his lip. “I’m not sure I can explain it so it makes sense. There wasn’t really any logic about it; it was something instinctive, something on a gut level.”

“It certainly does not make sense to me, but other people’s instincts rarely do make sense.” Laurentz looked at him piercingly. “And did you always intend to seduce his boyfriend for yourself?”

Arthur’s face felt so hot that he was sure it must have turned a hideous shade of crimson. “No, that was…I never wanted that until I saw Curt in person. And that was more than a year after they’d broken up.”

The silence was just long enough to make Arthur uncomfortable. “Do you mean the two of you have been together all that time?”

Arthur let out a nervous exhalation, halfway to being a chuckle. “I wish!” he breathed, still trying to laugh. “No, it was—well—there was a one-night stand, but—we, um, nothing really…ah…got going…until the attack last month…”

“An odd catalyst for a relationship.”

“I know.” There were several different ways that Arthur hated that about what they had now.

“It sounds like something out of the worst dreck being vomited out by today’s Hollywood.”

Arthur laughed. “If one of us was a woman.”

Laurentz nodded. “It’s not a good starting place for a _serious_ relationship.”

“I’m all too aware of that.”

“But you want it to last?”

“I…” Arthur turned to look out the window at Curt, who was now sitting on the grass, with several of the dogs nuzzling and licking his face. “I think so.” He looked back at the old man before him, who was watching him with a very knowing expression. “It’s hard to tell sometimes. Is it the real man I love, or the fantasy I concocted around him in nearly ten years of longing?”

“So long as you are aware enough of yourself that you can ask that question, you should be all right.” Laurentz smiled with a wistful pain in his eyes. “I wasn’t able to ask questions like that about my own interest in Burt. I was just old enough that I wanted to find ‘the one,’ and just fool enough to think that he might be it.”

“I’m sorry. That must ‘ave been awful.”

“It was. But it was necessary. I had grown complacent—convinced of my own invulnerability, despite that I lived in daily peril. After Burt left, I became careful again. Vetted the guest list before every party, insisted that no one should engage in sexual acts in the pool or on the deck, kept the noise level down to prevent the neighbours complaining…and told myself that there was no such thing as love for a man like myself, that any relationship I might enter into was soulless and purely physical. That I didn’t even _want_ to care for future lovers.” He laughed bitterly. “I wasn’t allowed to cling to that for long. Still, it was years until I admitted even to myself just how much Hobie meant to me.”

“What caused the change?” Arthur asked, even though it was utterly irrelevant to his story. He had to wonder if Curt didn’t have some of the same feelings that Laurentz had in the wake of Burt Gurney’s defection, and if perhaps the same thing that had worked for Hobie might work for him.

“It will sound dreadfully clichéd, but it was simple absence,” Laurentz said, with a small shake of his head. “Hobie went to film a movie on location in the mountains of Colorado in…I suppose it was 1960 by that point. It was one of his last features, before he was moved permanently to television work. He was away to film for nearly a month.”

“And you couldn’t ‘ave gone with him?”

“How could I have? Even if I hadn’t had my own responsibilities in town, what possible excuse could have been made for my presence on the set of a western? I tried my best to keep our relationship from becoming common knowledge the way my relationship with Burt had been. I didn’t succeed as well as I would have liked, but I did not fail so spectacularly that people wouldn’t have been shocked had I visited him on set.” Laurentz shrugged. “I thought it wouldn’t affect me, in any case. There is much about Hobie that grated on my nerves—most of it still does, in truth—so I felt a certain amount of relief at the idea of his being gone. Some small part of me probably hoped it would put an end to things between us. I did my best to put all thoughts of him out of my mind while he was gone, and as I was working on a film of my own, I did a good job of it. Then he turned up at my door one day, back a few days earlier than expected, and…” He smiled, and let out a rueful sigh. “I have always found pride in not being the sort of man who can lose control. Not in _that_ way, at least. But I did on that occasion. Barely got the door closed before…” He laughed. “I am not normally the sort to make love in the front hall, so it was rather a shock to me after I came to my senses.”

Arthur laughed, too. “I’d think so,” he agreed. Yeah, that was not going to help him any. If he went away for a month, Curt would probably just forget he had ever existed.

“It led to many changes in our relationship,” Laurentz went on. “A deepening of the commitment. When I retired from directing, a local film school offered me a job teaching directing to its students. Naturally, I accepted, but it forced me to remain in the city during the entire school year. Until that time, I had been able to accompany Hobie to his ranch whenever he wanted to spend a few days there.” He chuckled. “Hobie feels much the same way about horses as I do about dogs, and he dotes on the things as most men do on their dogs. He simply cannot stand to spend more than a week without visiting them and riding them all. Of course, he keeps a small staff on hand to care for them when he isn’t there, but that’s not good enough for him. He wants to check in on each of the horses himself. When my career changed so that I couldn’t always accompany him, Hobie changed the ranch’s entire staff, replacing all the men with women, so that I wouldn’t be jealous while he was away.”

“So _that’s_ the reason!”

“Oh, you knew about that?”

“Well, it’s sort of…legendary? I suppose?” Arthur frowned. “Not sure that’s the right way to put it. But a ranch staffed only by women is unusual. Honestly, I’ve always seen it described as a harem, as if they were all his mistresses.” It was usually repeated in the most salacious way possible, and/or as a way of proving how hypocritical the 1950s really were, if the pure and innocent Singing Cowboy Hobie Doyle was actually an appalling and shameless womanizer.

“Yes, a mistake the studio encouraged,” Laurentz agreed. “Capitol Pictures was well aware of Hobie’s sexual tastes long before we met, and they had always gone to great lengths to cover it up. Tried very hard to keep _me_ from learning about it, as well. Do you know that the same day they decided to force him into my picture, they also set up a false romance between him and…that Brazilian actress with the penchant for fruit-covered hats. I’ve forgotten her name suddenly…”

“Carlotta Valdez,” Arthur supplied. “I knew the studio was pushing the story that they were in love, though I didn’t know the precise timing of it.” He paused. “Did they do that because they were afraid you would want Hobie to take Burt’s place if you knew about his sexuality?”

Laurentz chuckled, and shook his head. “I suppose that must have been their thinking, but it was quite an offensive thought if so, as my relationship with Burt had not yet ended. The day Hobie first showed up on my set was the same day that Burt’s misfit crew abducted Baird to cover for Burt’s defection.”

“That sounds like quite a busy day.”

“All days are busy in the motion picture business,” Laurentz informed him. “Though I suppose that one was more so than usual.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about naming this fic "It's Complicated," btw, but somehow that felt a little...I dunno. Overused, among other things. ;)
> 
> Okay, so...yeah, I am not a dog person. (Not that I dislike them, I just don't know anything about them.) I have no idea what kind of dog Engels is. I compared what I could see of the yappy little thing in the movie to some photos online, and came across some photos of Havanese in the "puppy cut" and thought that yeah, maybe that was what it was. I'm probably wrong about that, but...given the doubly appropriate nature of the breed originating in Cuba which would later become a Communist country *and* be the national origin of the missing Stella Santos...I figured I'd just go for it as being the breed. If I'm really desperately insanely wrong about the breed, then maybe Laurence is having a senior moment? :P
> 
> BTW, I've written a short, single chapter fic about the dinner (date) that Hobie had just requested at the end of the previous 1954 scene. If anyone's actually interested in reading it, I'll post it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Hollywood, 1954**

After what had seemed like several years even if it had not in actuality been much more than a month, they were at long last filming the final scene of _Merrily We Dance_. It was the ballroom scene, which had of course been turned into an appallingly syrupy musical number, quite out of keeping with the original tone of the scene and with the original versions of any of the involved characters. And entirely unlike actual ballroom dancing, by the time Charles was done modifying the choreography to make allowances for Hobie’s lack of poise.

This was the second day of attempted shooting for the scene, and Laurence suspected it would take at least the rest of the week to finish it, if not well into the following week. They had learnt the first time they tried to film one of the songs, to everyone’s great surprise, that amongst all his other inabilities, Hobie was entirely unable to lip-synch, and a new mix of the recorded vocals had to be provided for every number, so that the adorable little fool would do his singing live while everyone else simply matched their lip movements to their own recorded voices.

Needless to say, _no one_ in the entire cast and crew had ever attempted anything like it before, and it was complicating the matter so greatly in this particular scene that Ärne Seslum looked as though he might begin to pull his hair out at any moment. Laurence, thankfully, had only to sit and watch, and offer the occasional comment regarding the slight amount of actual acting involved in the scene. It was both frustrating and comforting, being so uninvolved in the final scene to be shot.

Halfway through the current take, one of the minor cast members tripped over his partner’s gown, sending them both crashing to the floor. “Cut!” Seslum yelled, quite unnecessarily, as there was no possibility that anyone would have attempted to continue filming or performing after that disaster.

While the two embarrassed actors were attempting to disentangle themselves from each other and the gown, Hobie left the set and hurried over to stand in front of Laurence. “Say, uh, Laurence, I was wonderin’ if mebbe I could have a word with ya in my dressin’ room? I’m, um, a mite confused ‘bout what Monty’s thankin’ in this here scene.”

Laurence fought to maintain his total dignity, despite a painful awareness of several of the cast and crew hiding smiles or even snickers. “I’m sure we can discuss your motivation right here, dear boy.”

Hobie shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably, as if a child in need of the toilet. “Naw, um, it’s just…I…uh…I’d feel more easy ‘bout it if we…er…”

“Yah, we take ten minutes,” Seslum suddenly said. “We need to send for wardrobe, get this dress fixed.”

Laurence allowed himself a miserable sigh as he rose from his chair. “Very well, then. Lead the way, Hobie.”

Hobie’s grin as he turned to the door was unbearable. Such childish glee! How could that ever belong on the face of a grown man? Someone needed to put the boy over his knee and teach him a little dignity.

When they arrived at Hobie’s dressing room, he held the door open for Laurence to pass through, and then followed himself. Laurence barely heard the door shut before he felt Hobie’s hands on him, turning him around, a momentary prelude to being all but overwhelmed by an intensely passionate kiss. It was pleasant—of course it was pleasant—but Laurence liked to believe himself the sort who could overcome such simple temptations.

It took him a bit longer than he would have liked, but he did pull out of the embrace. “We’ve talked about this before,” he said sternly. “A modicum of discretion is not too much to ask.”

“But I didn’ say a word ‘bout any canoodlin’!”

What on God’s good earth did ‘canoodling’ mean? “Hobie, people are already beginning to talk; asking to spend time alone with me for _any_ reason, no matter how innocuous, will cause further rumours to spread.”

“But…” And there it was, the look of a puppy abused by its precious master.

Laurence sighed. “This is for your own protection,” he assured the boy, stroking a loose strand of hair away from his forehead. “If those who still suspect me of being complicit in Burt’s treason should get wind of our relations, you will fall under suspicion as well.”

“I don’ mind that.”

Of all the idiotic times to exhibit machismo! “Perhaps not, but _I_ should not like to see you put at risk like that.”

“Oh. Well, all right, then. I’ll try an’ keep a lid on her.” Hobie smiled pleasantly. He was certainly easy to manipulate. If he were to enter into a relationship with someone who meant him harm…

Laurence smiled, and gave him a brief kiss. “Good lad. I’ll return to the set then. You follow in a few minutes.” He tried to reach around Hobie for the doorknob, but out came the frown again. “What is it now?”

“Oh, well, I…I really did wanna ask ‘bout what Monty’s thankin’ in the scene. It don’t make no sense.”

A weak laugh was the only response Laurence could produce. Nothing could please him more than for this film to finally be completed! Hobie was entirely attractive and possessed quite delightful skills in the bedroom arts, but as an actor…intolerable was the only word that could describe him. Still, just a few days more, and then he’d be free of that unspeakable chore… “What about it confuses you?”

“If he’s so sweet on Allegra, then why’s he gon’ dance like that with Deirdre? An’ sing all happy an’ in love as if he’s forgot all ‘bout Allegra an’ Biff’s grip?”

Was he ever going to stop talking about Biff’s valise? “It’s…” Laurence sighed. “Did the scene make sense before the songs were added?”

Hobie nodded. “Shore did. But this here new scene ain’t nothin’ like that one.”

“Yes, well…there isn’t much to be done about it. The songs have utterly ruined the serious drama of the original play.” Laurence shook his head. “All you can do, dear boy, is to attempt to convey the original feeling of the scene on your face _despite_ the cheerful song.”

Hobie’s eyes grew wide, and seemed to focus in on the tip of his own nose. “Not shore I can do that.”

Laurence was quite certain he could _not_ do it. “Simply try your best, Hobie.” Carefully, he gave Hobie’s clothes a brief tug to right them and a pat to remove the wrinkles. “If you do a good enough job, I’ll fix you a proper dinner at my place tonight.” Assuming he could be enticed into eating something that didn’t moo.

Hobie smiled widely. “You bet!” he exclaimed excitedly.

“Good. Now wait here a few minutes before following me back.” Bad enough that they left the set together. If they should also _return_ together… “And try not to look so cheerful between takes.”

A momentary look of consternation was followed up by an exaggerated scowl. “How’s this?” Hobie asked.

“Perhaps a bit much,” Laurence said with a chuckle. “A look of boredom would suffice.”

Hobie nodded pensively, and Laurence quickly took his leave. It was, perhaps, futile to attempt to delude the cast and crew as to their private relations, but the less blatant they could be about it, the better. Not merely because Laurence had implied he would obey Mannix’s dictum to be more discreet, but also because it was rather shameful getting involved with a rodeo clown, no matter how handsome and shapely he was. At least Charles had been able to assure Laurence that it was well known among Hobie’s usual crew that the boy had always had a taste for men—almost exclusively older men, at that—so there was no fear that anyone would accuse Laurence of again abusing his position, but that didn’t change the chagrin he felt. Next time—assuming there was to be a next time, which at his age was not as certain as it once was—Laurence was going to have to be more careful not to enter into relations with an actor whose oeuvre was so odious. Burt’s musicals had been bad enough, but Hobie’s westerns…if Laurence was to be forced to watch them, their relationship was likely to be a _very_ short one.

As Laurence opened the door to the sound stage where the ballroom set was, he was surprised to hear an unfamiliar, droning voice coming from within, though it did not take long before he recognised the slightly tinny, hollow quality unique to radio broadcasts. Following the sound, he found the entire cast and crew—and even the two ladies from the wardrobe department—gathered around a radio that had been placed on a small table between his and Seslum’s chairs.

“—and following the communiqué, Moscow played the following trailer across all its radio stations.” The radio announcer’s voice cut off, and a song began to play. It was in the heavy, sonorous style of typical Russian music, but with a single light, strong, very American voice singing in English on top of the Russian background voices.

Everyone began muttering, and Laurence was sure they were all stealing covert glances at him, but he didn’t care. He sank down into his chair, staring at the radio in dismay. That was Burt’s voice. Singing with a pride and purpose such that he had never exhibited while working in Hollywood. Even the private performances he had put on for Laurence alone—or at one of their parties—had never had such conviction. Was that how much faith Burt had in the mockery that was Soviet Communism? Why? How? Burt was no fool. He should have seen how broken it was, how totalitarian, and how utterly unlike the theories that allegedly gave birth to it. What possible allure could such a situation hold for him?

The song faded out, to be replaced by background music of the same tune, and the voices of the trailer began. “It was a time of oppression and tyranny,” a deep, heavy voice with a thick Russian accent announced. “The people were enslaved by their bourgeois masters, unable to feed their families, locked away or sent to fight in foreign lands at the slightest provocation.”

“Follow me, comrades!” Burt’s voice exclaimed, edited in so close to the announcer’s final words that they were nearly drowned out. “We will defeat the Tsar and his forces—we will free Mother Russia for the people!”

A chorus of shouts from a crowd, and then the trailer’s announcer spoke again. “An uplifting musical sharing the true story of the great and virtuous _October Revolution_!”

The music cut out, and the original announcer began to speak again. “The radio communication from Moscow intimated that this musical, _October Revolution_ , would be released to theatres internationally in the summer of next year. Senator McCarthy’s office has announced that he will be making a speech to the Joint Houses tomorrow regarding this further treason from Burt Gurney, whose defection last month has caused the housing market in California to plummet as residents seek to move out of range of Soviet submarines, despite the Coast Guard’s assurance that it has stepped up its patrols and that no further enemy craft will be able to approach the American coast.” A long pause, and the sound of shuffling papers. “In other news, this morning President Eisenhower announced that—”

The announcer’s voice was cut off as Seslum turned off the radio. “This is distracting, yah?” he said, trying to smile. “We need to focus. Focus!” He clapped his hands together repeatedly, and the assembled cast dispersed.

Hoping it would calm his nerves, Laurence rose again and headed over to the craft services table. There was a pot of particularly inferior tea there; normally it was not worth the effort required to pour it into a cup, but the notion of a cup of tea, no matter how awful, was too comforting to pass up. The others who had been milling about in the area of the table dispersed as soon as he drew near. So that was to be his fate, then? A pariah not because he dared to love as he saw fit, but because he had been unlucky enough to be taken in by a pretty but duplicitous face?

He didn’t remain alone for long: Charles came up to him while Laurence was still pouring his tea. “Are you all right?” he asked, setting a gentle hand on Laurence’s arm.

“No, and I dare say I shan’t be for some time to come.” Laurence let out a miserable sigh, watching his breath send the tea steam billowing away from him. “Was anything about him true at all?” Perhaps he had never cared for men, and their entire relationship had been a lie, just so he could find out if the rumours about _On Wings as Eagles_ were true…

Charles shrugged. “About half his biography was a lie. I was talking to Danny in publicity—you remember him, I’m sure.”

“Ginger chap, stocky and…” Laurence coughed, glancing over his shoulder uneasily, not quite sure the best way to describe another man’s private parts where the average person might overhear. “Well-equipped,” he ultimately said. “Very popular at parties.”

“That’s the one,” Charles agreed. “He wrote Burt’s biography, the one they provided to the press.”

“I suppose he didn’t even fight in the war at all?”

“No, he did, but the studio’s version that he was just routinely discharged was a lie. He’d been dishonourably discharged. The Army called it dereliction of duty, but really they found out that while he was stationed in Berlin after the fighting ended, he spent all his free time in clubs on the Soviet side of town. Clubs where he could dance with other men. The Army didn’t like that part.”

Then at least the sex hadn’t been a lie. “Anything else?” It was rather to be expected that the studio would try to hide an actor’s disgraceful military conduct. They had even extended that courtesy to Laurence, claiming he hadn’t come to America until after the war was over, and completely covering up that whole jumping ship debacle.

Charles shrugged. “They changed his urban childhood to a pastoral one. It suited his image better if he was a farm boy than if his father was a goldsmith and his mother a debutante.”

Of course. Who but a child of luxury could have the time and education to dabble in Communism? Like so many other travesties, it was wholly the product of the middle class. “Do you…” Laurence shut his mouth again, his question unfinished. Ultimately, he didn’t want to know the answer. Where it stood, he could still pretend that Burt had at least in part wanted a genuine relationship with him. If he asked anything further, he might lose that one remaining shred of dignity.

“Try and put it out of your mind,” Charles urged, moving his hand onto Laurence’s shoulder. “Forget about Burt. You’ve got someone new to think about,” he added, with a wink. “And this one’ll be good to you. I can promise you that.”

“I don’t see how you can make such a promise.” It wasn’t as though _Charles_ was one of Hobie’s past conquests.

Charles shrugged, with a weak smile. “I’ve asked around in the past couple of weeks. Everyone agreed that he’s true to his word. To a fault, even.”

“Why would you ask about that?”

“What kind of friend would I be if I stood by and risked watching you get hurt all over again? We have to stick together in times like this. Burt’s treachery could destroy us all.” From the tone of his voice and the serious look on his, face, Charles didn’t mean the Hollywood community…

Laurence tried to chuckle, but what came out was more of a choking sound. “At least, so far, the publicity around Burt’s departure hasn’t mentioned me.”

“The media don’t like to admit we exist,” Charles said solemnly. “They won’t talk about it in the papers or on the radio. Because of ‘decency’ laws that forbid any mention of love but allow discussion of brutal murders and all other manner of death and destruction.”

“Typically American,” Laurence sighed. “Violence is the only king here.”

“Maybe, but if so then the dollar is Emperor.”

Laurence actually did manage to laugh at that.

Charles smiled. “That’s better. You need to relax, try and get back to living your life. You-know-who is throwing a party this Saturday. A really big one. You should come—both of you, together. Let everyone see that you’re all right, and that you’ve moved on.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready to attend parties again,” Laurence sighed. “But I will think about it.” The sound of the door being opened gave him an excuse to glance over at the door, where Hobie had just come in, trying so hard not to look cheerful that he looked instead as though he was concentrating intently on some awful task. Or possibly as though he was constipated. Crude though the thought was, it would probably be the typical assumption on seeing that look on Hobie’s face. “I’ll mention it at dinner tonight,” Laurence added, looking back at Charles. “He does, after all, hold quite delightful parties.”

***

**Los Angeles, 1984**

“Down, boy! Git offa him!” Shouting wasn’t enough, and Hobie had to drag the dog away from Curt by its collar.

“Thanks, man,” Curt said, wiping his face with his shirt. “I thought I was gonna choke to death on dog breath.” That would have been a shit way to die!

“Sorry ‘bout them. They don’ get too many chances to play with anyone but me. Laurence ain’t really up to playin’ with ‘em these days.”

“Can’t imagine a stiff-shirt like him ever playing with dogs,” Curt commented, as he got back on his feet.

“He used to,” Hobie assured him. “He really dotes on these here dogs. Suffers something awful when we lose one, too.”

“If you say so.” Curt hesitated a moment, once again fighting the urge to pry. This time, he lost. “I can’t believe he’s still got you using his full name after thirty years. How long’s it gonna take you to graduate to Larry?”

Hobie laughed, and shook his head. “Naw, I don’t gotta call him Laurence in private no more. Only he made me promise never to use his nickname around other people. ‘Cause it ain’t Larry.”

Curt chuckled. “Oh, it’s one of those weird-ass high-class British nicknames, right? Like Oofy or Binky; that kind of shit?” The ones that sounded like they should only be used for toddlers or lap dogs.

“Nothing quite that bad, but yeah. It’s based on his real last name, he said.”

That seemed even weirder to Curt than the idiotic, childish nicknames did, but it was probably better not to say so. Hobie looked like he was really pleased with keeping this deep, dark (bizarre) secret for his man, so why deflate that? But… “If he doesn’t even have the strength to toss sticks around, your sex life must be really suffering.”

Hobie’s reaction was more of a guffaw than a laugh. “Don’t you worry none, I ain’t feelin’ neglected! You seen how these dogs like to play. It ain’t just tossin’ sticks around, it’s runnin’ after ‘em, gettin’ down to give ‘em tummy rubs, all that. Hell, some days even _I_ don’t feel much up to it all t’once. There’s a lot less gettin’ down on all fours in sex.”

“Not many blowjobs these days, huh?”

“That there’s private.”

“Fair enough,” Curt conceded.

Hobie started walking over to the patio furniture near their pool. “Let’s us sit down so the dogs don’t expect nothin’ more outta us,” he said, gesturing Curt to follow him. As soon as he sat down, he looked over towards the house. Curt looked, too, as he sat down, and found that they had a good view of where Arthur was interviewing Laurence in the sun room. “That new fella of yours shore is purty,” Hobie commented, looking back over at Curt. “You do got a type.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” Though, really, Arthur wasn’t the same type as Brian in any way except physically. Brian was a diva, through and through: he thrived on being the center of everyone’s world and made damned sure that everyone was going to worship him just the way he wanted, and not many people had ever complained, because who could be more worthy of being worshiped than Brian Slade? Arthur, on the other hand, was a wallflower born in a body that was meant to belong to a star. He’d made a convincing show of being a proper diva ten years ago, but only until you got close enough to him to see that he was nervous as fuck and didn’t know what to say or how to act the part. That was probably why Curt had never forgotten him: beautiful boys were a dime a dozen (even if ones _that_ beautiful were rarer than diamonds), but beautiful boys who dressed like divas and acted like shy virgins were…well, really, Arthur was the only one Curt had ever met. Maybe there were a few others out there, somewhere, but Curt had never stumbled across them.

“Hope this one turns out better for you,” Hobie said, shaking his head. “Lot of bad press when you broke up with that last one.”

Curt sighed. “Brian was…that relationship was fucked up. It should have been perfect, but…I don’t know.”

“You ain’t still pinin’ for him, are you?”

“No, that’s not…it’s just really…really fucking complicated, you know? Brian’s not the kind of guy you can get over, no matter how many years pass, no matter how bad he fucked you over. Ask any of his exes. It’s just how it is with someone like him.” Curt shook his head. “Best you can do is adapt, learn to live without him.” He let out a quiet, miserable laugh. “I was working on a song when we broke up—a song about him. It talked about how life without him would be life without air. And that’s what it was, you know? The air was gone, so I had to learn to breathe water.” He smiled, chuckling. “Maybe I should dig up my old notes, finish the song now, have the final verse say just that.”

“Breathin’ water don’t sound too good.”

“It’s a metaphor.” Wait, was that right? Shit, that was the kind of thing Brian used to jump down his throat about. It _was_ a metaphor, right? Because it wasn’t a simile, since he didn’t use ‘like,’ so that made it a metaphor, didn’t it? “My lyrics have shit like that all the time,” Curt added, trying to drive the metaphor/simile debate out of his head. “People expect it.”

“Hmmm.” Hobie’s hum sounded like a desperate attempt not to respond, because he was never going to agree and no amount of argument was going to make him agree, ever. Of course, given the kinds of songs Hobie was used to singing, that was hardly surprising.

Thoughts raced through Curt’s head, memories of his mom just about fucking drooling as she watched Hobie’s crappy TV shows on their shitty, ten-year-old set his dad had brought home without explaining how he got it (probably dumpster diving). All those cutting little comments, and… “Hey…uh…I feel like I kinda owe you an apology,” Curt said, clearing his throat uneasily.

“What for?”

Curt grimaced. “Uh, well, I mean, nothing ever came of it, but…back in 1970…I could’ve accidentally outed you. To the world.”

“What?” Hobie looked more confused than angry, but that might change…

“It was…I was still high as a fucking kite, and somehow I ended up on the phone with my mom, and…” Curt shut his eyes, trying to think desperately of some way to tell this part of the story without sounding like the biggest asshole in the history of the world. “I wanted to piss her off, so I told her I’d gone down on you.”

“Why would you do that? Cain’t be your ma wanted to know a thing like that.”

“Of course not! That was the whole fucking point!” Curt gestured angrily with his good arm. “You don’t know what she put me through—eighteen months of fucking electric shock treatments ‘cause she thought me sucking cock meant I was _sick_. She paid money we didn’t have to quack doctors to ‘cure’ me by torture! And she kept on spouting all this mean shit. She watched your TV shows with the same zeal she went to church with, and she was always telling me how I should be a real man like you, and all this bullshit like that…so when I found out you were just as gay as me…” He sighed. “Of course I wanted to fuck you just to piss her off. But there’s no point to that if she didn’t know I’d done it.” Curt shook his head. “I mean, it turned out all right, since she didn’t believe me, but if she _had_ believed me, she could have told the whole fucking world…” Hopefully, the world wouldn’t have cared, because there was a lot of bad shit going on in 1970 (especially in Detroit), but sometimes that’s just when stories like that spread the fastest, to distract people from the real problems in their world.

“Well, that’s a mite upsettin’,” Hobie said, frowning.

“I know, man, and I’m sorry. I was a dumb kid with more heroin than blood in my veins.”

“That’s upsettin’, too.” Hobie shook his head. “Why are so many popular music singers takin’ those kind of drugs?”

“I dunno,” Curt said, with a shrug. “It’s just the culture. Subculture. Whatever you wanna call it. Everybody’s doing it, and most of us wouldn’t be trying to make a living as singers if we weren’t attention whores, so we always wanna do whatever’s gonna get us the most approval from the people around us…or something. I don’t know. I was so young when I started that shit that I don’t even remember why I did it.” He sighed. “I’m clean now, though,” he added, trying to smile. Not that it was as simple as that, but Hobie was a relic of an age that wouldn’t understand. Fuck, he didn’t even seem to realize that Hollywood was just as saturated with drug users of all kinds as rock was. And it wasn’t like Hollywood in the ‘50s had been drug-free…

“That’s good.” Something about the way Hobie said it seemed to dictate an end to that line of conversation.

It ended up, in fact, putting an end to the conversation as a whole. They sat there in silence, watching through the window as Arthur continued interviewing the old man. If Curt leaned back in his seat enough, he could get a quarter’s profile on Arthur, but for the most part the view through the window was entirely of Laurentz. And he knew they were there, because he’d glance out at Hobie every so often, a soft smile settling on his lips as he did so. Well, whatever it was that they saw in each other, it really seemed to be keeping them together. Curt didn’t get it—they seemed to be total opposites without even any interests in common—but maybe that just meant he was doomed never to have that kind of long-lasting relationship.

That wasn’t a pleasant conclusion.

It wasn’t that Curt was one of those guys who wanted to live the straight life without the straight sex, pretending there was no difference between him and them, but the idea of someday growing old alone was pretty depressing. All the more so since he had once, for an all-too-brief time, thought he would grow old with Brian. He hadn’t wasted his time since then looking for the perfect life-long partner, but there’d always been some deep down part that hoped he’d stumble across someone else worth spending the rest of his life with.

That was probably why he was having so much trouble nailing down the right routine with Arthur. He seemed like the kind of guy someone could spend a lifetime with, and there was definitely a part of Curt that wanted to groom him into the “perfect” partner. But there was also a part of Curt that feared Arthur was trying to groom _him_ into _his_ idea of the perfect partner. (Especially given the way Arthur kept trying to coax him into quitting smoking. And the fact that Curt had actually cut down on the cigarettes a lot because of it…) After Brian, the last thing Curt wanted was another partner who wanted him to change who he was and how he lived his life.

It was hard to say just how much longer the interview lasted after that (Curt really needed to start wearing a watch someday), but it seemed pretty fucking interminable. It looked like it was going pretty well, though; there were moments of laughter, and Laurentz never looked angry, so obviously Arthur had a better way of talking to him than Curt had the one time he had tried talking to the old man. Then again, Arthur was also English, and that had to help a lot.

Eventually, Arthur got up and put his notebook back in his man-purse, then turned to look out the window at Curt, smiling warmly at him. At that moment, Arthur looked every bit as beautiful as he had ten years ago, and a little thrill ran down Curt’s spine at the thought that he was Curt’s.

“Looks like they’re done in there,” Hobie commented, before getting up and leading the way back into the house.

Arthur was either very satisfied with the results of the interview, or very glad that it was finally over, because he gave Curt a deep, long kiss before they said their goodbyes and left the house. Part of the goodbye process was, of course, the invitation (mostly from Hobie) to drop by again before they left town, which received the typical “of course” answer that usually meant “not gonna happen.”

When they got into the car, they woke up the driver, who had fallen asleep in his seat, and muttered what was probably an apology for dozing off before starting the car and heading up the long driveway out towards the road. Only when he got to the end of the driveway did he turn around and look at them. “Where are we going?” he asked. “Back to the hotel?”

“Yeah,” Arthur said, but Curt shook his head.

“No, let’s go to that other hotel,” Curt said. “The one where the missing woman stayed.”

“Why? They already told me they could only tell the police anything.”

“Sometimes these things go better in person,” Curt insisted. “What hotel was it?”

Arthur looked skeptical, but he told the driver what hotel to go to—a pretty swanky one in the heart of downtown, not as nice as the one the label had provided them with rooms at, but still luxurious—and the driver headed off.

“So, how’d it go in there?” Curt asked, looking at Arthur.

“Overall, it was a good interview, but I ‘ave a lot of work to do goin’ over my notes and culling the wheat from the chaff.” Arthur sighed. “I don’t know if I just ‘ave one of those faces that makes people want to tell me their ‘ole bleeding life story, or if it’s just bad luck, but I keep getting so much more than I need.” He shook his head. “At least it was interesting this time, but all those little details are hardly relevant to the story.”

“All those little details?”

“Like how he and Gurney used to spend hours debating literature, because he preferred Shakespeare while Gurney liked to read Goethe in the original, or how he’s always been attracted to a man who can sing.” Arthur chuckled. “That didn’t help you any, though: he said your music isn’t singing, but caterwauling.”

Curt laughed. “He’s not the first to say so.” Reviewers loved to say shit like that. Also his parents.

“I told him that your singing voice is actually quite wonderful for traditional songs, that it’s just your music doesn’t employ that part of your voice and all, but I don’t think he believed me.”

“Since I’m not really interested in adding the octogenarian set to my fan base, I don’t think I care,” Curt said, shaking his head.

Arthur chuckled. “I’m sure a lot of your fans would be astonished and disappointed that you even know the word octogenarian.”

“They’d be fine with it if it was the name of a drug,” Curt replied, laughing.

Arthur sighed sadly, shaking his head. What was _that_ about? He had to know how all of Curt’s managers—since Jerry, anyway—and publicity agents had bent over backwards to promote the idea of him being reduced to a primal animal by drug abuse, even after he spent years in rehab to clear his system of that shit and get off drugs, hopefully for good.

They remained in silence after that, Arthur looking over his notes and Curt stewing about just what judgment Arthur had passed on that statement, and what it meant, and all that shit. There was no _way_ Arthur could be judging Curt for having used a lot of drugs back in the ‘70s; Arthur had been just as high in ’75 as Curt had been, even if the Creatures had at least kept him away from the worst of the hard drugs. The car pulled up at the hotel just as Curt decided to believe (whether it was true or not) that Arthur had been judging the _fans_ rather than _Curt_.

The hotel’s doorman opened the door of the car, and both Curt and Arthur got out and headed inside. “You don’t ‘ave to come with me,” Arthur said, looking at Curt with a wounded gaze. “Nothing’s likely to happen to me in a posh place like this.”

Curt shrugged, looking around the hotel lobby. It wasn’t half as fancy as some of the places he used to stay with Brian. “It’d look weird if I went back out now. I’ll just hang out over here,” he said, leaning on a nearby bit of blank wall.

Arthur bit his lip a moment, and headed over to the clerk at the desk. She was a young woman about Arthur’s age, maybe a few years younger, and was staring at Curt very intently. Even after Arthur got there and started talking to her, she only spared him a few glances, her gaze continuing to return to Curt. Arthur was growing visibly agitated, either by her inattention or by what she was saying…

Curt walked over and put an arm around Arthur’s shoulders, bringing his body language down about ten decibels. “How’s it going over here, beautiful?” he asked, giving Arthur his most winning smile (which he had often been informed looked fabulous in profile).

“Wretchedly,” was the surly response.

“Um…you’re…you really are Curt Wild, right…?” the clerk asked, her voice shaking with excitement.

“Yeah, and?” Curt barely glanced over at her as he spoke. It was the way his fans expected him to treat people, after all.

“Could I—uh—could I have an autograph?”

Curt finally really looked at her—she was so giddy she was practically swooning—and gave her a very tightly controlled smile. “I suppose so…after you help my boyfriend here out with what he wants.”

“Oh…um…” She looked at Arthur uncomfortably, then looked back at Curt. “It’s just…that’s…kind of…not allowed…?”

Curt tried to shrug, but between the one bad arm and the other around Arthur’s shoulders, it didn’t feel like it had worked too well. “And I’m not really supposed to go around giving out autographs for free, so that’s a fair trade-off, right?”

The clerk let out a single, awkward laugh. “I guess so,” she said, her voice raising half an octave nervously. Her gaze returned to Arthur. “What did you say the guest’s name was?”

“Stella Santos. She’d ‘ave gotten here about a month and a half ago. I think I ‘ave the exact dates of her stay in my satchel…”

“It’s all right, the name is enough.” She punched some keys on her computer, then nodded. “Yes, here’s her file. She checked in on July 9th, had the hotel call her a cab the following day, and then checked out the day after that.” The clerk bit her lip for a moment. “That’s odd…”

“What’s odd about it?” Curt asked. “Sounds typical to me.”

“Well, she had reservations for a whole week. And there’s no check-out time listed.” The clerk shook her head. “When someone checks out, the time is usually logged in for the check-out. It must have been a late-night check-out. Sometimes guests just leave their keys behind in the rooms to check-out.”

“How do you know the difference between that and them just forgetting the keys?” Arthur asked.

The clerk laughed. “Well, if their luggage is still there, it’s a pretty good sign they just forgot the keys!” Something about it felt to Curt like an inside joke that he and Arthur were on the outside of. “Besides, there’s a special envelope they’re supposed to leave the keys in if they’re checking out when the desk is closed. Of course, they’re only given the envelope if they paid with a credit card in advance.” She shrugged. “Most guests don’t like to do it that way, though, because it opens them up to additional charges; without being there to defend themselves, the hotel could accuse them of damaging the room and charge their credit card for it, even overcharge it if we wanted. Not that we would! But most guests don’t want to trust anyone that far.”

“I see. Do you ‘ave any information about where she went with that cab she called?” Arthur asked.

“Yes, when the desk called the cab for her, we had to provide the taxi company with the destination address. Looks like a private home in Malibu.”

Arthur’s eyes practically lit up. “Could you give me the address, please?”

The clerk hesitated, and glanced over at Curt. He did his best to indicate no address would equal no autograph. Must have done the trick, because she bit her lip and got out a piece of paper, writing down the address and handing it over to Arthur. “Don’t tell anyone I gave you any of this information, please,” she said quietly. “I’m breaking so many rules doing this.”

“Don’t worry,” Arthur said, tucking the address in his pocket. “As a journalist, I’m used to keeping my sources confidential.”

The woman didn’t look at all satisfied by that. But Arthur’d gotten what he wanted, so Curt wrote her a nice, personalized autograph, and _that_ seemed to leave her satisfied, so he considered it to be an “everybody wins” situation.

They didn’t say anything else until they were back in the car. “We were lucky she was a fan of yours,” Arthur sighed. “That would ‘ave been a complete waste of time otherwise.”

“But it worked out, right?”

“It certainly did.”

“So you wanna go to that address now?”

Arthur’s face turned ashen. “No!”

“Huh?”

Arthur laughed uncomfortably. “Why don’t we go back to the hotel for now? My clothes are covered in dog hair, and you smell like dog. We could use a change and a shower before anything else.”

“Yeah,” Curt said, laughing.

The car left the missing woman’s hotel, and returned to their own hotel, but Arthur maintained an almost fearful silence the whole time they were in transit. Once they were back in the hotel room, Curt tried to bring the subject up, but Arthur didn’t want to talk about it, and insisted that they get right in the shower. Since he wanted to shower _together_ , Curt was fine with that, but he was surprised to be rebuffed when he tried to kiss Arthur as soon as they were in the shower.

“Don’t you want to know what’s goin’ on?” Arthur said.

“Uh…I thought we were gonna fuck.”

Arthur chuckled. “We can after, but…” He sighed. “I don’t—I don’t want to risk anything happening…”

“Arthur, what the _fuck_ is going on?”

“That address Stella Santos went to in Malibu? It was Burt Gurney’s house before he defected.”

“Okay, that makes sense. But how’s that put such a fear into you?”

“I asked Mr. Laurentz about the fallout of the defection, about what happened to Gurney’s property afterwards. All he knew was that government agents went through the house with a fine-toothed comb; over the next six months or so, they confronted him with all sorts of love notes and photographs, not just ones involving him, but other men, too, both other celebrities and men he’d never seen before. One of those agents had told him that since Gurney had committed high treason by defecting, all his property became the property of the state.”

“Surely the government just auctioned it off when they were done with it,” Curt said. Arthur _couldn’t_ be suggesting that woman had been disappeared by the US government. Could he?

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Arthur shook his head. “No matter what happened to it, we’ve now solved one mystery. She disappeared because she went there. I’ll go to the hall of records one of the days when you’re doing interviews, find out who owns it now, if I can.”

Curt laughed. “Wow, how _Chinatown_!”

Arthur laughed, too. “Well, when in Hollywood, you ‘ave to play by movie rules, right?”

Curt nodded, and leaned in to kiss him. “So, now that I know what’s going on, we can fuck, right?”

“Right. But, Curt, you ‘ave to understand that we might be in danger, all right? No talkin’ about my story to anyone—not even me—anyplace anyone could be recording us. Not even the hotel room. It might be bugged.”

“You’re seriously paranoid.”

Arthur sighed. “I’ve been told by two different people that they’ve had private detectives investigate me and uncover every little wrong I’ve done in my time in this country. And at least one of them is actively using that information to blackmail me. I think I ‘ave a right to a little paranoia.”

Curt smiled, and kissed him again. “Well, I’ll have a word with him when we get back to New York and make him back off on the blackmail shit.”

“Her, not him.”

“Oh. Fuck. Nothing I say’s gonna make Shannon do shit.” Curt frowned. “Well, maybe I can get him to convince her to lay off.”

“Do you really ‘ave that much influence with him still?” Arthur asked, his eyebrows sliding towards each other in an expression of wounded vulnerability.

“Hey, don’t look like that,” Curt begged, kissing him gently. “I’m not gonna leave you and go back to him. But we’re trying to find a way to be friends, just like _you_ wanted.”

Arthur smiled brightly, and leaned in to kiss Curt passionately. That seemed like it was finally the signal to forget about talking and get on with the much overdue fucking. And it was good fucking, although it got awkward when Arthur insisted on stepping out of the shower to find a condom. Yeah, he was right to do so, but…damn, did Curt miss the days before AIDS when condoms weren’t necessary!

After fucking, they finished the shower—those fucking dogs had even drooled in Curt’s hair—and got into the comfy robes provided by the hotel, then had a seat on the sofa in the front room of the suite. “So, you got anything else you need to do today?” Curt asked.

“Not really,” Arthur admitted. “I need to go over my notes and try to copy out the more pertinent information, but that doesn’t ‘ave to be done today. Did you want to do something?”

“I thought maybe we could go shopping,” Curt said. “We need to get you something suitable to wear to a party.”

“A party?” Arthur repeated, looking at him suspiciously.

“Hobie told me about an old-school Hollywood party tomorrow night,” Curt explained. “Like the kind I first met him at.” Maybe Arthur’s paranoia was rubbing off on him, but he didn’t quite want to call it a gay party.

Arthur’s eyebrows raised. “I didn’t know those still happened.”

“They’re not needed the way they used to be, but they still happen and there’s one tomorrow night, and I know a few of the guys who’ll be there, so they’ll let us in, no question. So you need something nice to wear.” Curt frowned a moment. “But you understand there won’t be any fucking, right? Most of the other guests are probably infected with AIDS, even if they’re not showing symptoms yet.”

Arthur smiled. “Why would I want to fuck anyone else when I’ve got you?”

“Sometimes you say the most beautiful things, baby,” Curt said, before kissing him passionately. After the kiss, Curt smiled at him warmly. “How about tomorrow?” he asked. “You got plans then?”

“Other than the party you want us to go to, nothing that I can’t do in the days when you’re busy working,” Arthur answered. “Did you ‘ave something else in mind?”

Curt nodded. “This is your first time in California; I want to take you to see the sights.”

“Fine by me, love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably should not have used the word "machismo" in a 1954 scene, as it was only coined in 1948, but...the word literally has no synonyms. To express the same thought without it would have taken a lot more words and felt painfully forced. (Except maybe if I used one in a foreign language, but the only language I would expect Laurence Laurentz to speak would be French, and I don't know any French.) So I guess he just happened to have read whatever text first introduced the word, and adopted it straight away...


	8. Chapter 8

After spending a day and a half experiencing the best that Los Angeles had to offer, including the heights only a celebrity has access to, returning to work on his story was particularly hard on Arthur. Though of course the hangover wasn’t helping much.

Curt had to spend the entire day out signing paperwork and meeting with local artists who wanted to take part in the benefit, so Arthur wanted to make as much progress as he could while he was on his own. The hall of records was not so easy for him to use as it had been for…whatever Jack Nicholson’s character’s name was…but after wrestling with the system all morning, Arthur eventually managed to learn that the government had indeed sold Burt Gurney’s former house to something referred to only by the letters CACL. (Arthur presumed it was some sort of organization rather than an individual, but that was unfortunately not a very helpful conclusion.) The sale had gone through in 1956, which seemed a long time after the event to Arthur’s way of thinking, and no amount of checking through the records had shown him any evidence of the house changing hands again.

It would all be very informative if he had any idea what CACL stood for. The CA part was probably California, but what was the CL? (Probably _not_ chlorine…) Arthur could come up with a lot of possibilities: Civil Liberties, Cinema League, Climbing Lackeys, Chimpanzee Lovers…

The more he thought over some of his guesses, the more Arthur realised that he might not so much be hung-over as still drunk.

He had several cups of coffee with his lunch, in the hopes of sobering up before his next destination, the Los Angeles Public Library. Arthur had, over the last five years, gotten well accustomed to the New York Public Library, so it was disorientating trying to find his way in the unfamiliar layout, but eventually he found the periodical archives, and began the tedious process of looking through index after index for information on Burt Gurney and his defection.

The results were eerily identical to those he had gotten in New York: only a handful of movie reviews and a shockingly small number of articles about the defection and its fallout. Tellingly, they were the _same_ handful. If a particular movie’s review survived only in the _New York Times_ in New York, its only surviving review in Los Angeles was _also_ the one from the _New York Times_. The newspaper archives in Los Angeles had been gutted in exactly the same way as the ones in New York had been, and prior to being photographed.

Honestly, he hadn’t really been expecting any other result, at this point in the investigation, but it would have been remiss for him to simply assume as much. However, there was still one other lead to follow up on. Arthur began scouring the library for the most elderly librarian he could find, eventually coming up with one who appeared to be in her sixties.

“Excuse me,” he said, smiling helplessly, “but I wonder if you could help me with something?”

“Of course, dear. That is my job. Are you lost? What department are you looking for?”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. Only I was lookin’ at some old newspaper articles from the ‘50s, and they talked about something called CACL, but they didn’t say what the letters stood for. I was wonderin’ if someone would know what it was.”

“CACL?” the librarian repeated, her brow furrowing. “It doesn’t sound familiar. But I know where you can look it up,” she assured him with a smile. “You just follow me.”

The librarian led Arthur to the reference section, and hunted methodically along a shelf until she pulled down a volume about the size of a secondary school textbook. It was an unprepossessing book with a plain cloth cover in a particularly dull shade of pale brown. She looked quite proud of herself as she handed it over to Arthur. “Here you go, dear.”

“Uh…thank you,” Arthur said, feeling a bit perplexed. What in the world was it?

The librarian went on her way, and Arthur found the nearest table, where he sat down and opened the book to its title page. It was a listing of government agencies, civil associations, unions, and other such groups. The date of publication was 1970, so there was no fear of the Reynolds machine having pre-edited its content, either…

It was a simple matter to find CACL in the index at the back and follow the index to the correct page. It turned out that the acronym stood for California Anti-Communist League, and that it was founded in 1949 by State Senator Martin Reynolds. The league was listed as being defunct, however, having died out with the dawning of the Kennedy era, though its holdings (and remaining members) all transferred over to the American Cultural Decency Foundation.

The ACDF…the cornerstone of Reynolds’ successful campaign for the presidency in 1980, his extreme right-wing organisation portraying the ‘morals’ of America as if it was exclusively a nation of, by and for racist Puritans. The ACDF, the building blocks out of which the Committee for Cultural Renewal had been built.

Bloody hell, just what had Arthur gotten himself into?

***

**Hollywood, 1954**

The wind whipped into his face, stinging at his eyes, as Laurence hurried across the lot, nearly out of breath by the time he reached the door, between his haste and the punishment of the wind. Going inside the soundstage had the extra benefit, of course, of getting away from the man in the trench coat who was following him about like a particularly determined yet cowardly hound, neither willing to lose the fox nor to attack it. All this time, and the government still hadn’t realised that Laurence really had known nothing of Burt’s politics? He tried to tell himself that the government agents were thus persecuting _all_ the people at the studio, but it wasn’t the same thing. The agents lurking in every corner of every soundstage weren’t there for anyone in particular. This man was specifically following Laurence around. No one else was getting that treatment, not even Ärne Seslum, who had known Burt much longer than Laurence had, and in every way seemed a more likely candidate to be a foreign agent!

A production assistant approaching him with a furious look on his face put all such thoughts out of Laurence’s head. The PA started hissing a reproach about the filming light, but Laurence silenced him with a gesture, before whispering “Do be quiet, boy. They’re filming.”

For a moment, the PA looked so angry that Laurence feared violence, but then he finally recognised to whom he was speaking, and stalked off, shaking his head. Laurence followed him towards the set itself, where he could hear a familiar song being performed. It was painful to hear it, all the more so because he had loved it so much before. Not that it was a good song—it was trite, clichéd and fed into all the worst aspects of heterosexual culture—but the subtext of the final half of the song had given them both such a good laugh, especially when Burt had performed it for him in that beautiful Malibu mansion that was now swarming with agents of the FBI or CIA or whatever other acronym the government chose to assign to its vile miscreants. Burt had played up the subtext to an extent that bordered on lewd—even going so far as to lower the zip on his trousers with the line “and you’ll see a lotta me!”—but in that setting, with so much wine in them both, it had been a beautiful thing.

Hearing it now, under the watchful gaze of some four or five government agents scattered among the crowd of studio employees was agonising. Pity, really; Hobie was performing the song quite well. It had been yet another slap in the face when Laurence had first learnt that the real reason _Merrily We Dance_ had been turned into a musical was to see if Hobie could become the studio’s replacement for Burt, not just in _Navy Boys_ but in their picture line-up for the years to come, but when he looked back on it, he realised it had been inevitable. Capitol needed a musical star if they were to compete with the other studios, and it made sense to use someone who was already a star rather than to hold a talent hunt and have to build up a new star out of nothing. Though it was surprising they had gone ahead with the plan after learning that Hobie couldn’t lip-synch.

Despite pleas from Hobie to come visit him on the set of his new film, this was the first time Laurence had visited the set of _Navy Boys_ , and he only came because he had a genuine need to ask Seslum a question regarding the final steps of post-production on _Merrily We Dance_. It wasn’t an urgent question, and he could have— _should_ have—let a studio messenger deliver both question and answer, but the temptation was one he couldn’t resist. Hobie had been claiming that everything was going wonderfully on _Navy Boys_ , but Laurence had his doubts. Admittedly, the more simplistic story and characters were more suited to Hobie’s limited acting skills, but Laurence had trouble accepting his tales of everything going so smoothly. Surely he was simply not picking up on the difficulties he was causing…

As Laurence got close enough to approach Seslum’s chair, Hobie finished the main body of the song, and the interlude that would have been the bulk of Burt’s dance number began. The other actors on stage were doing a toned down version of the dance Burt had demonstrated for Laurence, while Hobie stood stock still in the middle, aside from the occasional very acrobatic leap up onto a table or the top of the bar. The finale of the number—which Laurence suspected would never make it past the censors—wherein the sailors all began dancing in pairs with each other went as planned, and soon Seslum was yelling “Cut!”

Freed from the camera’s oppressive gaze, Hobie was hurrying over towards Laurence, but Seslum kept talking before he could get there and say anything they would both regret. “Yah, we go again,” he said, nodding. “We get the close shots this time. Back to positions.”

Hobie momentarily took on the aspect of a good puppy denied his treats, but he didn’t complain, and went back to first position, where a girl from the make-up department waylaid him to make sure all was right with his face.

Laurence took advantage of the delay to put his question to Seslum, regarding how the musical numbers were to be edited on _Merrily We Dance_. On any of Laurence’s usual pictures, he would have supervised the editing down to the last frame himself, but he had no idea how musical pictures were normally cut.

“You know my editor, Steve Talbert, yah?” Seslum nodded, assuming an affirmative answer to his question, despite that Laurence had never heard of the man. “You ask him to edit these scenes. It is decided!”

Talking to Ärne Seslum always wanted to make Laurence perform acts of physical violence. He wouldn’t—he couldn’t—but he wanted to. Still, he forced himself to maintain a pleasant attitude. “How is the filming coming along on this picture?” he asked instead. He wanted to know just how far he could trust Hobie’s word.

“Is going good,” Seslum assured him, much to his surprise. “This will be a new kind of musical picture! Less dancing. We see if audience is willing to accept a musical star who doesn’t dance, yah?”

“But you just filmed dancing,” Laurence pointed out.

“Yah, we use the cut-away shots to make it look like Hobie is dancing. This is the first number in the picture—tricks the audience into thinking they see more dancing than they do.” Seslum tapped the side of his head with an expression that said he thought he was being very cagey and clever. “The rest of the numbers, no dancing. We see how it goes with the test audiences, yah? If they don’t like, we have time to re-shoot, add more dancing.”

That seemed like a potential disaster to Laurence, but if it worked, perhaps it would be a good thing for Capitol Pictures. If musical stars were no longer expected to be expert dancers, it would be easier to find another one to replace Burt if things didn’t work out for the studio with Hobie playing that rolê. Though Laurence might prefer it if things _did_ work out for Hobie to continue making musicals instead of westerns…

Glancing over at Hobie as a girl from wardrobe was freshening up his sailor suit, Laurence couldn’t stop a smile from gracing his lips. That boy really was delightfully attractive, and he was staring at Laurence with such love. Far more love, unfortunately, than he had managed to show on camera for Deirdre or Allegra or in that bizarre dream sequence with Carlotta Valdez.

In fact, Hobie’s gaze was so heated that Laurence thought it might be best if he left the set quite promptly, before anyone else figured out what was going on between them beyond those who already knew. Discretion was an important part of survival, after all.

Doing his level best to ignore the man still following him about, Laurence returned to the editing booth and sent a studio messenger to find this Steve Talbert that Seslum had mentioned. Thankfully, Laurence’s usual editor, Gerald, seemed to know the man and was not offended by the request for assistance. Gerald had, after all, been uncertain how to proceed in the first place. While he waited, Laurence picked up the newspaper he hadn’t had time to read that morning, having had to leave Hobie’s rental apartment before the driver could arrive to pick the boy up for his call time on set, lest the driver recognise Laurence’s car. He hadn’t been able to feel settled in to his morning routine when he returned to home, and had ended up coming to the studio rather early himself. That alone had probably alerted many to the nature of his relations with Hobie; in future, they would have to spend the nights when Hobie had an early call the next morning at Laurence’s house, so that Laurence’s schedule would not be so obviously disrupted. That or find Hobie a new driver whose silence could be relied upon because he shared their ways.

The front page of the newspaper held no stories of interest, but the second page slapped him in the face with a reminder of how much worse things could get. Another report from Moscow, this time from within the embassies there. The Kremlin had held a special concert, it said, to celebrate the arrival of dignitaries from its Communist allies in China and North Korea, and invited every ambassador in Moscow to attend. The United States Ambassador had walked out of the concert as soon as it was announced that it was to feature the songs from the upcoming film _October Revolution_ , and that all the roles would be sung by their actors from the film, especially Burt Gurney. Worst of all, everyone present had called the performance a “triumph,” even the ambassadors from the non-Communist countries. The French Ambassador was quoted, in fact, as saying that he had never been impressed by Burt as a singer from his movies, but that now he was quite impressed indeed, both by his skill and by his passion.

Such a wave of nausea passed over Laurence that he had to set the newspaper down and send out for some tea in the hopes of settling his stomach. How long was he to be tormented by this affair? How long was he to be haunted by what had been?

Would the ghost of Burt never go away?

***

**New York City, 1984**

As Curt went through the motions of the banal introduction onto the talk show, he actually found himself a bit relieved. After that first day apart in LA, Arthur had become downright clingy, barely wanting to be apart long enough for Curt to take a piss, let alone go do anything as long as an interview. On top of his clinginess, he’d also started acting jumpy and paranoid. What the fuck was wrong with him? At least he’d settled down a little bit since they got back to New York, but not by enough.

“So, I see your arm’s still in a cast,” Chad Ledbetter, the obsequious host, said. “Shouldn’t it be out of the cast by now? It’s been what, two months since you were shot?”

“More like a month and a half,” Curt corrected. “And it’s not still in a cast. This is just a sling to keep me from overusing the muscles until they recover from a month in a cast, not to mention being shot through and ripped open and all that shit.” Most interview programs asked him not to swear, but this one told him that the audience expected it, and would find an interview with him to be ‘phony’ if there weren’t a lot of bleeped out words by the time it aired. Something about that instruction had just made him feel tired all over.

“Are you going to be up to performing by the time of your benefit concert?” Chad asked. “It is going to be another concert, isn’t it?”

“We’re still figuring that out,” Curt told him. “There’s probably gonna be a concert, though, yeah, around New Year’s. That’ll just be the highlights of what’s gonna be on the benefit album. A lot more artists wanted to take part than could really be in a single concert. And I’ll be all right to sing—I’m already all right to sing—but I doubt I’ll be up to any guitar solos by New Year’s.” He flexed the fingers on his left hand. They were working a lot better than they had been right after the attack, but Curt doubted his guitar playing would ever be what it used to be. Should hopefully be good enough to let him get back to writing music (without having to learn the piano or just to hum out the tune) but it might never get back to performance levels.

“Weren’t some of your band members also injured in the attack?”

“Just my drummer, Kevin,” Curt corrected. “A bullet got him in the leg, but it didn’t hit the bone like it did with my arm, so he’s already fully healed.” Curt laughed. “No one official’s ever confirmed it, but we’re all pretty sure it’s the same bullet hit him as hit me. It went in one side of my arm and out the other, and there were so many bullets around that the cops didn’t exactly need to run ballistics on every single one of ‘em, you know?” Not that the cops even _bothered_ with that kind of analysis. It wasn’t exactly necessary, and wouldn’t have been even if the cops _hadn’t_ been trying to just let it all lapse quietly into the forgotten pits of legal obscurity. “Anyhow, since Kevin’s drums were up on a platform behind me, the angle seemed right to us and all, so like I said, we all think it was the same bullet.” He shook his head. “Kevin’s been griping at me lately about it, and saying how if he gets AIDS from that bullet going through me first, he’s gonna kill me himself.”

Chad backed away in his chair, scooting backwards. “Do you have AIDS?”

“Not far as I know.” Curt shook his head. “There’s still not a test. But by the time we found out AIDS existed, I was done with rehab, and I approach sex differently when I’m sober. I’ve been pretty good about using a condom since then. Unless I already had it before rehab and it’s just been lying dormant, I don’t think I’ll get it.”

Chad didn’t relax as much as he should have. “So…uh…there’s been a lot of rumors lately about you and that reporter. They’re not…really true, are they?”

Curt grimaced. “Yeah, they’re true. Me and Arthur are living together, and the sex is very good, thanks for not asking.”

Chad paled. “I’d think your management would want you to deny that you were having another gay relationship…”

“You know, back in the early ‘70s, my management bent over backwards to make sure everyone knew I was fucking a man.” Or rather, the other man’s management did. Jerry had never been a proper manager to Curt. He’d just tolerated Curt’s music as an advertisement for Brian’s music. Curt’s best solo album had only gotten so-so sales until he’d gotten out from under Jerry’s thumb, after all.

“Well, yes, but that was…a very different time…”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Curt sighed. “Thing is, it’s not that people have changed, it’s that what they’re being told they should think has changed. You think the fans who let out squeals of delight to see me and Brian doing some dumb stunt on stage together have joined the legions of homophobes who wish the bullet had hit my head instead of my arm?” Curt shook his head. “No way. It’s just now the media’s on the side of the conservative shitheads.”

“But President Reynolds is always complaining about the liberal media,” Chad pointed out.

“Uh-huh. And when was the last time you saw any news platform even slightly criticize him?”

Chad looked pensive for a moment. “Um…well…that article your, uh, friend wrote about the attack was awfully critical…”

“That just proves my point,” Curt said, shaking his head. “Arthur’s practically an underground journalist now—and that magazine didn’t even want to print his criticisms of the administration, they just couldn’t edit them out without cutting the balls off the story. Reynolds just hates the press. Beats the fuck outta me why.” Other than that it was supposed to be an instrument of truth, and what could be a bigger enemy to Big Brother than the truth?

“I see.” Chad cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Well, let’s change the subject back to something a little more interesting to your fans. Are the rumors true that Brian Slade is going to take part in the benefit?”

Curt frowned. For all this guy’s homophobic desire not to talk about Curt’s love life, he was sure eager to dive right back into talking about Curt’s heartbreaks! “Not in person,” Curt said, frowning as he tried to pick his words carefully. Just when he was finally starting to get back on speaking terms with Brian would be the worst possible time to accidentally let something slip to the press about his new identity. “He…well, you remember what he did to his fans ten years ago. I don’t know if they still hate him for it, but he’s absolutely fucking convinced that they’re still ready to burn him in effigy at a moment’s notice. So he won’t take part in the concert or record a new song for the album, but he did agree to write a new song for me to perform.”

“How’s that working out so far?”

“Well…he’s kinda rusty. If he’s been writing music since then, the style’s not much like what it used to be.”

“Well, his style was never much like yours, was it?” Chad asked, sounding uncertain enough that Curt wondered if he had ever even _heard_ any of Curt’s music, or of Brian’s.

“No, but he sometimes wrote songs for me back in the day. Not that I recorded most of ‘em.” Curt laughed. “Even at the height of our popularity as a couple, back in ’73, no one would have wanted to hear some of those songs. They were about fucking, you know? And really blunt about it. You may think you’ve heard some horny, lewd lyrics, but no matter what it is you’ve heard, it’s tame compared to some of that shit.”

“What…uh…why would he write something like that…?” Chad was just about white as a sheet. Pretty funny, really.

“I’d call it foreplay, but it was more like…getting in the mood before the foreplay.” Curt frowned. “It’s hard to explain. We were both pretty fucked up with drugs, so it was a lot harder to get it up. Until you’ve had a drug problem, you have no idea just how much it fucks up your love life. And it’s even worse in a gay relationship when you’re _both_ high all the time. If one of us had been sober, it wouldn’t have been such a problem, ‘cause then at least he’d have been able to get it up. But I was still hooked on the methadone I’d been prescribed to get me off heroin, and Brian was developing a problem with cocaine, so…” Curt sighed. “Wish I could go back in time and stop whoever first discovered you could use all those things to get high. The world’d be a better place if the only things you could use to get high were mushrooms and marijuana.”

“Do you mean you still smoke pot even after going through rehab?”

Curt shrugged. “If someone’s passing around a joint at a party, I might have a toke or two, but I don’t go looking for it. It’s not like I care that it’s technically illegal. I just figure if I started smoking it seriously, I might backslide. But by itself pot is almost entirely harmless. Maybe it fucks with your short term memory a little, but you ever hear of anyone overdosing on it?”

“Um…”

“Believe me, it’s just not possible. And I know some morons who’ve tried.” Curt laughed. “Back in the ‘60s, I used to live with some real stoners. Never saw ‘em without a lit joint in their hands. Nicest guys you ever met. Hard _not_ to be nice when you’re stoned like that. Makes you real friendly.”

Chad bit his lip. “Maybe this isn’t…ah…getting back on the subject, will any of your other musical acquaintances from the early ‘70s be taking part in the benefit?”

“Yeah, of course. Polly’s on board for sure—Polly Small, local here in New York—and Jack Fairy’s going to record a song for the album, but last time we talked, he didn’t think he’d be able to come back in time to be at the concert, or even actually record in person with me. He’s somehow ended up getting all mixed up with those guys in Hokkaido, so getting back could be hard.”

“I’m not sure I know who Jack Fairy even is.”

Curt scowled. “What’d you ask that question for, then?”

“What?”

“Jack practically _invented_ glam.” Curt shook his head. “More important, me and him did a record together right after I broke up with Brian. Most people—me included—think it’s my best album.” Fleeting memories of the recording sessions passed before his eyes, the good times interspersed with the breakdowns in the wake of what Brian had done in London in Curt’s absence…

Chad looked over towards the cameras, and the cue cards. “That was while you were living in Berlin, wasn’t it?” he asked, as if he knew what the fuck he was talking about.

“Yeah, I was there about a year. Jack came and found me after a few weeks, and we started—oh, fuck! _That_ ’s where it was!”

Chad practically jumped out of his chair. “What—what was where what was?”

Curt laughed, and shook his head. “No, it’s just something I’d been trying to remember for Arthur. He’ll be thrilled I finally figured it out!

The rest of the interview dragged on seemingly interminably, now that Curt had something so important he wanted to do when he got home. Normally, he didn’t have anything to look forward to at the end of an interview except getting plastered or getting laid, but this time…

As soon as he got back to the apartment, Arthur peeked around the corner nervously, as if he’d been afraid it might have been someone _other_ than Curt letting themselves in with a key. “’Ow’d it go?” he asked. He’d been so nervous lately that he’d been completely dropping a lot of h’s that he’d normally at least half-voice. It was weird, to say the least.

“The interview was shit, like usual. But I finally remembered where I knew the name Burt Gurney from!”

Arthur perked up considerably. “Really? Where?”

“Berlin.”

An adorable look of confusion crossed Arthur’s features. “Berlin?” he repeated. “You saw one of his films on the telly there?”

“Nope. Jack and I used to take the train into East Berlin to check out the underground nightlife there. And I remember seeing posters with the name Burt Gurney on ‘em.”

Arthur rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Cinema posters?” he asked. “For new Soviet pictures, old Soviet pictures, or underground presentations of his old American pictures?”

But Curt shook his head with a grin. He’d been looking forward to this. “For nightly appearances on stage.”

“He was livin’ in East Berlin ten years ago?”

“You said yourself he liked to read German literature in the original. Makes sense he’d end up there after the Kremlin had no more use for him, right?”

“That’s true,” Arthur agreed. “I’m not sure if it matters at this point,” he sighed. “He couldn’t know what’s got the Reynolds administration so desperate to cover up something about his film career that they’d silence a journalist.”

“Do we really know it was the administration?” Curt asked. He hadn’t heard anything about _that_!

“Far as I can tell, it was the Committee for Cultural Renewal that was responsible,” Arthur replied, “so…yes, it was.”

“Fuck.” Curt scowled. “So…you mean you don’t wanna go talk to him?”

“Do you think we could?”

“Don’t see why not.”

A little smile perked the corners of Arthur’s mouth. “That’d certainly make an amazin’ end to the article, the first Western interview with him since his defection thirty years ago…” More of the smile escaped his control. God, he was cute when he smiled!

“Let’s do it, then!”

“But it’s not so easy gettin’ all the way to East Germany! You’d never convince your label to pay for it, either.”

“Oh ye of little faith!” Curt laughed, before striding over to the phone and dialing Phil’s number. “Hey, Phil, you think the label would want an unreleased track from 1974?” he asked.

“You have some unperformed music lying around?” Phil asked, sounding confused.

“No—well, yeah, some, actually, but what I meant was, you think they want an unreleased cut from my ’74 album with Jack.”

A momentary silence on the other end of the phone. “It’s not April 1st, Curt.”

Curt laughed. “I’m totally fucking serious, man. You wanna tell ‘em about it, or not?”

“What…Curt, really, tell me what’s going on! I know the label would jump at that—hell, I’d be thrilled with it, too—but what… _why_ would there be a song like that unreleased all this time later?”

“Well, we recorded one more song than we needed at the time, and left behind the master recording with the studio where it was recorded. Then Jack never released another album after that, so _he_ never released it, and it’s not really the same style as my solo albums, so _I_ never released it, so it’s just sitting there waiting for me to reclaim it, yeah?”

“Do you really think it’s still there and hasn’t been lost or destroyed?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Curt glanced over at the stunned and excited look on Arthur’s face, and grinned. “So you wanna see if you can talk the label into flying me there to get it? The guy who owns the studio’s never gonna surrender it if I don’t go in person.”

“Oh, yes, of course, I’ll get right on it!” There was a moment of silence, as if the phone was halfway to being hung up, then Phil’s voice came back onto the line. “Would you mind if I came with you and we stopped in London, too? The label’s still having trouble getting the master recordings from ‘Danger Zone’ away from Bijou Music.”

Curt sighed. “Jerry’s such a fucking asshole. Yeah, fine, we can stop in London on the way back from Berlin. But if you’re coming then we need three tickets. Or another private jet.”

“Curt, I don’t know if I can convince them to pay to fly your boyfriend halfway around the world with you. Los Angeles is one thing, but Germany?”

“If he was a chick, they wouldn’t have a problem with it,” Curt pointed out. “Besides, you’re talking about stopping over in London. You think he’d forgive me if I went back to London without him?” Phil was making uncertain noises on the other end of the phone, so Curt sighed. “He’s got an in with another ex-glam band that hasn’t officially offered to take part in the benefit. They’re not well known in the US, like at all, but they’re really good. Bet they’d be willing to sign a contract with the label to release their albums in this country. Their new stuff would really sell here.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Phil sighed, and hung up the phone.

Curt felt a little guilty as he turned to look at Arthur. “Sorry, I wasn’t…I don’t know how you guys actually parted ways, but I wasn’t sure what else to say.”

“We just drifted apart,” Arthur assured him. “There’s no ill will there. But what happens when there’s no unreleased song waiting in Berlin?”

“Oh, there is! It’s shit, but it’s there.”

“You really did record an extra song with Jack Fairy?” Arthur’s voice trembled with excitement to the point that it made Curt laugh.

“You’re so cute,” Curt said, moving over to drape his good arm across one of Arthur’s shoulders.

“Why did you not release it? What’s wrong with it?”

Curt sighed. “Well, it’s a break-up song, you know? I wrote it in the throes of realizing that Brian wasn’t gonna come looking for me to get back together. The parts that aren’t weepy are petty and bitter.”

Arthur laughed. “So it’s every bad break-up condensed into one song,” he surmised.

“Yeah, and it’s about as much fun as a bad break-up.” Curt sighed. “It’s novel, I guess. You get to hear Jack singing my really bitter, shit lyrics about what I assumed was going through Brian’s coke-addled head at the end of our relationship. Honestly, I’m amazed he was willing to record it. It’s that bad.”

“Even so, the idea of hearin’ it is thrilling,” Arthur assured him, stepping gingerly forward, closing the gap between them. “But are you really sure the studio still has the recording?”

“Yeah, the guy who ran the place was a big fan of Jack’s; he’d never get rid of a recording of him singing. Had a thing for him, actually. Not sure if they ever hooked up, but if they did there wasn’t any bitter break-up, so we’ll be fine.”

“You really are a marvel,” Arthur said, beaming at him with that sexy smile.

“You think so? I’m not sure I believe you…”

“Oh, I can convince you, all right,” Arthur assured him, with a beautiful, sensual twinkle in his eye, even as he started stroking Curt through his pants….

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, yes. I need to explain who "those guys in Hokkaido" are. See, while I was writing this, I came up with an idea for a side-story that was to take place in between this fic and the previous one. It was going to be a cross-over, strange as this will sound, between "Velvet Goldmine" and "Lupin the Third", partially just an ordinary Lupin adventure (him trying to steal Brian's final performance costume from the London rock museum where it was on display, with Trevor and the Flaming Creatures helping Zenigata try to stop him) and partially starting out with an AU to a particular episode of the second Lupin television show. Said show was the one on in the late '70s, the one that was on when "Castle of Cagliostro" came out...and which was not even a quarter as good as the movie (and maybe only half as good as the first show, which is alarming considering the first show was deeply flawed). Anyway, in this one particular episode, Lupin is hired by the grandsons of the Shinsengumi to get a ship that's been floating around in an underwater current since the Meiji Restoration back to the surface. They're all betrayed by the group's leader, and it turns into a gun battle between Lupin and the remaining grandsons of the Shinsengumi over a solid gold cannon which they want to use as a symbol in order to take Hokkaido and make it into its own independent nation. (Goodness only knows if they intended to oppress the Ainu further or have them help in the liberation movement, promising them proper recognition at last. Probably the former, I fear.) Aaaaanyway, I spent the whole gun battle pleading with Lupin to let them have the cannon, since he could steal it from them later, after their fight was over (one way or the other) but no, he and his friends just killed them all. So, I wanted an AU where they *did* let the grandsons of the Shinsengumi take the cannon and go, promising to steal it from them after they no longer needed it. That by itself wouldn't be much of a reason for a fic, so I came up with this weird crossover idea. Which, honestly, part of me kind of still wants to write, only I think I'd do an even worse job of it than usual, and it's not like "Lupin the Third" blends in well with "Velvet Goldmine" in any way, shape or form. Uh, anyway, since in the previous fic I had randomly said Jack Fairy was calling from Hokkaido rather than just calling from Japan (I think my original thinking being that it would be much harder for him to get back from Hokkaido on short notice, since he'd need a flight back to Tokyo before he could get on a plane for New York) I came up with the idea of him having gotten involved in the war for the liberation of Hokkaido, and...honestly, I couldn't force myself to completely give up on that idea. However, as I have no plans to write it at this time (though if anyone else wants to have a go at it, I'd be glad to give you the basic precis I came up with), I decided to make it a more simple (*cough* if not actually explained *cough*) thing that the Ainu were inspired by all the protest movements of the '60s and '70s in the rest of the world, and are rising up against the Japanese government for proper rights and representation, and *that* is what Jack got himself involved in.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies in advance if the limited amount of German in the following scene is wrong. Though I was pretty good at it in high school, almost all my knowledge of the language has atrophied through disuse, and I had to use Google Translate. :( It seems to fit what little I remember, though, so hopefully it's right. (Though I did at least remember enough to be able to replace the informal "dich" with the formal "Sich" given the situation.)

Crossing the Atlantic in a private jet, it turned out, was far less unpleasant than crossing it in a typical commercial flight. (Especially considering that when Arthur had left London for New York, he’d had so little to pay for the ticket with that he’d practically been shoved in a luggage bin.) They didn’t fly straight to West Berlin, though: first they had a two-day/one-night stopover in Paris, because the label had contacts with some French news agencies—and one French band—so they wanted Curt to make a few public appearances and record a few interviews. Arthur was judged to be “in the way” for all of those, but he had no trouble filling the time with a few of the tourist activities he’d missed due to his illness when his family had gone there all those years ago.

When they did finally arrive in West Berlin, their first stop was the studio where Curt and Jack Fairy had recorded their album ten years ago. It was a medium-sized studio, a bit larger than the one in London that the Flaming Creatures used to use. The owner was a bit older than Curt, a beefy man who appeared to be of Mediterranean ancestry (or to spend entirely too much time in a tanning salon), who spoke nearly perfect English with a heavy German accent. As soon as Curt entered his office, the man leapt out of his chair and ran over to give Curt a big hug.

“You did not call to say you were coming back to Berlin!” he exclaimed. “But how are you? You are not still wounded?” He eyed Curt’s sling as he spoke, looking worried.

“No, I’m fine,” Curt assured him. “You’ve still got the recording of that last song Jack and I did, right?”

“Ja, ja, of course. But why—oh, you wish to put it on your new collection? I thought you didn’t like it.”

Curt laughed nervously. “Yeah, well, I don’t, but…” He coughed, looking a little unsure of what to say. “Well, Jack’s getting some radio play these days ‘cause of Hokkaido, so the label wanted to be sure they included everything I recorded with him.”

“Ah, yes, of course!” The man sighed, shaking his head. “I’m sorry to part with it, but how could I deny you anything, liebchen?” He elbowed Curt jovially. “But I’m not going to give you anything until you introduce me to your beautiful new boy.”

Introductions, it turned out, weren’t the extent of what he wanted, and they ended up having to sit down to an early afternoon tea with him. But Arthur didn’t mind that, because the man was filled with stories of Curt and Jack Fairy in and out of the recording booth. Only after they left with the tape safely in hand did Arthur ask the question that had been bothering him the whole time. “In what way is Jack Fairy gettin’ any radio play these days?”

“You didn’t recognise his style?”

“What?”

Curt grinned. “Jack wrote all those Hokkaido anthems. The protest songs and battle odes.”

“Shite…” Arthur thought about the songs for a moment, and laughed uncomfortably. “I should ‘ave realised. You’re right, they really do sound like his own songs. Suppose the Japanese lyrics threw me off.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it,” Curt agreed. “Anyway, once we get this handed over to Phil, we can get on the next train across the Wall.”

“Is it really that easy? I thought the ‘ole point of it was to stop people gettin’ out of West Berlin.”

“I think it’s more to stop their own people from getting _in_. Jack and I never had any trouble going either way, but there’s always all these checks on the train going from East to West to make sure there’s no East German citizens trying to escape.”

Arthur sighed sadly. “Not that things in the western world are as free now as they were ten years ago.”

“Yeah.”

It turned out that Curt was quite right: they had no trouble getting on board the train that went from West Berlin to East Berlin, and were soon talking to a station official at the train station in the dismally-constructed, concrete-heavy eastern half of the city. Curt spoke to him in somewhat halting German, so all Arthur could understand was that Curt was asking about Burt Gurney. The official gave them instructions, pointing the way to a nearby bus stop.

“I didn’t realise you spoke German,” Arthur commented, as they waited for the bus. In that one interview he’d seen that was given in West Berlin ten years ago, a translator had repeated the interviewer’s questions in English before Curt answered them.

“C’mon, I lived here a whole fucking year! Of course I picked up enough of the language to get by.” Curt looked at him for a moment, as if reading Arthur’s face as to the reasons for his surprise. “Not that I ever let on to the press or my fans,” he said, sighing. “Didn’t fit the image, y’know? I’m supposed to be a brain-dead junky only motivated by getting high and getting laid.”

Arthur wasn’t sure what he should say to comfort Curt about the unpleasant reputation he had been expected to maintain in his professional career, so he just put an arm around Curt’s shoulders, trying to provide comfort through pure body contact. The bus wasn’t too long in coming, though, so they were soon on their way to the place where the station official had told Curt they could find Burt Gurney.

It was a miserable little cabaret with dingy wooden fixtures that were probably quite nice once—say during the Weimar era. Something about the place reminded Arthur of the bar where he had interviewed Mandy Slade, and he had to wonder if he was about to find a Burt Gurney who was as weary and worn as Mandy had been that day. (She seemed much less burnt-out now than she was then. Perhaps it was meeting with yet another journalist who only wanted to talk about her ex-husband that had exhausted her so.)

The cabaret looked dead, but it was evidently open, as the bartender made no move to ask them to leave. When they approached the bar but didn’t sit down, he eyed them warily. “You want something, Amerikaner?” he asked—almost more of a grunt, really.

“Yeah. Looking for Burt Gurney,” Curt said. “I heard he works here.”

“He performs at twenty in night.” The bartender began cleaning glasses very pointedly.

“We want to talk to him before he goes on stage,” Curt told him, slipping a twenty dollar bill onto the bar. “Privately.”

The bartender looked at the money, then up at them. “You are Schwule?”

Curt laughed. “You mean you can’t tell just by looking?”

The bartender continued to stare at them for just long enough that Arthur began to worry it wasn’t going to work, and that they might end up arrested for trying to bribe someone (and with American money, at that!). Then he casually pocketed the twenty in the same motion as he set down his glass and cleaning rag. “Come.”

The bartender slipped out from behind the bar, and headed along the wall of the cabaret to a door labelled “Nur Personal.” This led to an even more dismal hallway, and a door marked with a faded and off-kilter star. The bartender knocked on the door, and a man’s voice within said “Ich möchte bis zur Vorstellung allein sein.”

The bartender grimaced, and knocked again, saying “Es gibt zwei Amerikanische Schwule, die Sich sehen wollen.”

There was silence for a moment. “Amerikaner?” The faint sound of footsteps preceded the door being opened just a little bit. Arthur didn’t have a view of the man on the other side at all, but he must have had a view of them, or at least of Curt. “I feel like I’ve seen your face before,” he said, his Midwestern accent undimmed by decades spent on the far side of the Iron Curtain.

The bartender laughed, and said something long and fast, the only part of which Arthur caught was “rock und roll.” Then the door finally opened, and Arthur got his first glimpse of the man who had prompted this entire strange endeavour. Burt Gurney was now in his mid-sixties, according to the file Arthur had read back in New York, but he looked both older and younger than that. His hair was only greying sparsely, and he still moved with a dancer’s easy grace, but his face was leathery and care-worn above his tired-looking dressing gown. He gestured them inside, then looked at the bartender. “Zwei Stühle und zwei Biere, bitte,” he said.

The bartender sighed, muttered something, and headed back off down the hall.

Curt led the way into the little dressing room, where there was only one chair, which faced a small, dirty make-up table on which an open bottle of vodka rested. “You’re drinking vodka in the beer capital of the world?” Curt asked, shaking his head. “That’s just plain _wrong_.”

Gurney laughed uncomfortably. “I acquired a taste for it in the old days that’s never gone away,” he said, even as he moved his body in between his guests and his bottle. “But what do two American singers want with me? I wouldn’t think anyone in America even remembered me.”

“I’m the one who wants to speak to you,” Arthur told him. “And I’m a journalist, not a singer. And I’m sure you can tell I’m not an American, either,” he added, with a chuckle.

“No, definitely not,” Gurney agreed, with a more genuine laugh than he had produced a moment ago. “I wouldn’t expect anyone would want to interview me _now_. I thought the West had forgotten I ever existed.” He turned his chair around and sat down. “A particularly unpleasant American ambassador once told me all the prints and negatives of my movies had been destroyed.” He sighed sadly. “That’s what America’s system gets you: one man’s crime destroys the hard work of thousands, forever.”

“The Library of Congress still has copies,” Arthur assured him, “and I know other countries still have prints.”

Gurney perked up again. “Really?”

Arthur nodded. “I remember seein’ one on the telly in Paris when I was a boy.”

“Did you like it?”

“Not really,” Arthur admitted. “The story was trite and the characters without depth. Thought the dancing was pretty good, though.”

Gurney laughed sadly, but if he was going to reply, he was cut off by the return of the bartender and another man. The bartender had a tray with two pints of beer, and the other man was carrying a chair like Gurney’s under each arm. They shut the door behind them as they left. “What really brings you here?” Gurney asked, as they sat down and Arthur took his notebook out of his satchel. “Even if you had liked the one movie you’ve seen, you wouldn’t have come all the way here just because of that.”

“That’s true,” Arthur agreed, and briefly explained why he was there.

There was a long silence in which Gurney produced a glass from a drawer of his make-up table and filled it with vodka. (Evidently he didn’t want to be seen drinking straight from the bottle in front of the press, no doubt the lingering effect of some training the Hollywood system had put him through all those years ago.) “I’m not sure what you expect from me,” he said, after taking a drink from the glass. “I couldn’t even tell you the name of America’s current Vice-President, let alone what happened to a woman reporter I’ve never heard of before.”

“I’m not expecting that of you,” Arthur assured him. “I was hopin’ you might be able to think of something or someone who might ‘ave been implicated or suspected after your defection that someone in power would for some reason want to cover up even all these years later.”

Gurney shut his eyes for a long moment which he filled in slightly by taking a deep drink from his glass of vodka. “I can’t think of anyone the government might have accused other than my writer friends. And since the American noise factories could not stop crowing about _their_ capture and incarceration, they can’t be the answer you seek.”

Arthur shook his head with a sigh. “Sadly, no. It would make my job easier if they were.”

“Isn’t it possible, though?” Curt asked. “I mean, what if one of ‘em was actually, like, related to some conservative politician?”

“They weren’t,” Gurney said, with a laugh. “If any of them had any connections, they wouldn’t have been underpaid studio hacks.” He shook his head. “Besides, I saw the lists at the time. Every one of them was captured, tried and convicted.”

“Guess that woulda been too easy, huh?” Curt sighed.

“Yeah,” Arthur agreed. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m not about to waste the unique opportunity of being the first journalist to present your side of the story to the Western world after thirty years,” he said, smiling at Gurney. “I’m sure that’s what Stella Santos would ‘ave wanted to do if she’d been able to reach you.”

“I doubt anyone cares, especially since they don’t remember me,” Gurney said, more to his glass of vodka than to Arthur.

“Don’t you want to make them remember?” Arthur countered. “Today’s generation has never heard of you, so they don’t bear you any ill will. An entire new generation could discover your movies with the copies that survive in foreign countries. Maybe all the work of those thousands of people won’t stay lost forever.”

Gurney looked back up at him and shrugged. “I don’t think today’s audiences would care for my movies. Not based on what Hollywood is producing now.”

“They won’t even ‘ave the chance to find out if you don’t get your story told.”

“Fine.” A bitter smile crossed his lips. “For the little guys.” He took another gulp from his glass. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, let’s start at the beginning. Since you were wiped from the public eye, most people don’t know anything about you. I only ‘ave a couple paragraph’s bio myself, mostly based on Capitol Pictures’ official biography of you, and according to what I learned in Los Angeles most of it isn’t even true.”

Gurney looked at him curiously. “Who were you talking to in Los Angeles?”

“Laurence Laurentz.”

A pained look crossed his face as if he’d been slapped. “He must hate me now.”

“I don’t think so. He has a lot of regrets where you’re concerned, but it didn’t sound to me like there was any hate there.”

“He’s a better actor than most of the ones he used to work with,” Gurney said, shaking his head. “I’m sure he hates me.” Then he laughed. “Not as much as Ärne Seslum must, though! Do you know, I was halfway through filming a picture when I left? And the studio forced poor Ärne to put Hobie Doyle in my role? He couldn’t even talk, let alone act. I don’t know what they were thinking, trying to make him into a real actor. Poor Laurence had to suffer having him in a picture, too. What a pile of shit that turned out to be!”

Arthur repressed a smile as best he could. Gurney clearly had no idea who had been sharing his ex’s bed for the last thirty years! “My mum loves that movie,” he said instead.

Curt laughed at that. “You’re fucking kidding me! Really? That’s like the worst movie Hobie ever made! It’s even worse than _Navy Boys_.”

Arthur shrugged. “I didn’t say _I_ liked it. I don’t understand any of what goes on in my mum’s head. I doubt she ever saw any of Hobie’s other films, at any rate. I can’t even imagine her watchin’ a western. I suppose she might ‘ave seen _Navy Boys_ , but I’d think the title would ‘ave put her off.” As Arthur hadn’t seen it himself, he didn’t know much about it, aside from the fact that its final cut apparently still contained some shots of Burt Gurney’s feet and legs, doubling for Hobie Doyle’s. “That’s not entirely relevant, anyway,” he said, shaking his head before turning his attention back to Gurney. “We’re on a time limit, so let’s not waste time on someone else’s film career. If you don’t mind, would you start at the beginning, with just a little bit about your life? Doesn’t ‘ave to be the ‘ole life story, just enough to let me write a few paragraphs and fill people in.”

Gurney shrugged. “They won’t care, but I suppose there’s no harm in it. I was born in Toledo in 1919, into an upper middle-class family. I never really knew my mother’s family, because they thought my father was beneath them, and pretty much disowned her when they got married. She was a debutante, and my grandfather owned a mine and several factories. Real sweatshops, the kind of thing Engels was talking about in England. My grandfather was a monster, the kind of monster that capitalism puts on a pedestal and names monuments after.” He shook his head. “My father owned a jewellery store; he was an artist who worked in gold and diamonds, making rings and other baubles only the wealthiest could afford. But he had a lot of ins with people of my grandparents’ status, so he made a good living at it. Rich people as far away as Chicago would come to Toledo just to buy his jewellery.” He scowled into his vodka. “It was the bourgeois childhood to beat out all other bourgeois childhoods. Even before I knew what was wrong with it, I already hated it. I could feel the hypocrisy and callousness with every pore on my body.”

“Was your family at all affected by the Depression?” Arthur asked. “Surely there wasn’t so much call for gold jewellery after the stock market crashed.”

Gurney’s laugh was bitter and cold. “You don’t know much about the Depression,” he sighed. “It widened the gulf between the haves and the have-nots, but it didn’t put an end to the wealthy. Sure, it forced a lot of the middle class down into the lower class, but the people who were _really_ rich hadn’t had so much of their money in the stock market. It wasn’t like things are in America now. Back in the ‘20s, if you were truly upper class, most of your money was in land, in sole ownership of a company, or in gold. You had a bank account, yes, and maybe even owned stocks, but not enough that losing them would matter. No, the Depression did nothing to dull the bourgeois desire for pretty, meaningless baubles. And my father continued to profit off their greed. I was driven to school past mobs of the homeless, and children lining up in the desperate hope of getting a little food. I saw boys my own age and younger having to beg just to get enough to eat or to find shelter for their families.” He shook his head. “If you want to be able to say in your article what made me become a Communist, it was then and there. The Depression showed me the evils—the excesses and the inevitable results—of capitalism, and I used my dance lessons as an excuse to spend time with children who weren’t of my parents’ class. There was an older boy in the class that I liked—I was an early bloomer—and I followed him home some days. He was only a year or so older than I was, but his older brothers were in their late teens and early twenties. Their father committed suicide after losing everything in the crash, and their mother had worked herself to death trying to keep the family together with no money. They all worked as many jobs as they could get, and still struggled to make ends meet. Some of the older boys got involved in bootlegging and other crimes, but the middle boys, they became Communists. Back then, it wasn’t a bad thing in America to be a Communist. There were groups of us in every city, and the Depression made Communism more popular than ever. Those brothers were too proud to accept charity, so I couldn’t share my parents’ wealth with them, but they never refused it if I showed up at their apartment with a pie or a roast and the explanation that my mother had made it for me to share with my friends. So I would go there two, three, sometimes even four times a week, always with a nice meal, and sit there in their kitchen, listening to them expound on the glories and virtues of Communism. And when I got old enough, I read Marx, I read Engels—I even learned German in high school so I could read them in the original.”

“You were already learning dance at ten years old?” Arthur asked, despite that it would derail Gurney’s story about his lifelong love of Communism. That was not really a story he particularly wanted, after all, since he could be sure it would do nothing but alienate the readers.

“I started almost as soon as I could walk,” Gurney said, laughing. “Or it felt that way. I can’t even remember when I started learning to dance. I was already proficient in ballroom dancing by the time I was six. That’s the first memory I have of it. My mother wanted me to be in high society, the way she had been before getting married, and seemed to think that if I was a brilliant dancer, that might do it. My grandfather was not so easily swayed, and I moved from ballroom to ballet. I’m not sure if that was being done to please my grandparents. I did like dancing, though. I always did, so perhaps that was the only reason she moved me into ballet lessons after I got old enough to be uncomfortable dancing with girls.”

“And how long did the ballet lessons continue?”

“Until 1930. I felt awful, getting ballet lessons after the market crashed, and the other students in class were beginning to thin out. When I told my mother I wanted to switch to tap instead, she fought the idea. She saw tap dance as lower class. And it was: I wanted to learn it so I could teach it to the poor children, so they could get jobs dancing, or at least dance on street corners to earn the money they were begging for.” Gurney frowned. “That sounds awful now, but in 1930…it felt like a more honest way of making a living than outright begging.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Curt said. “My folks let me learn guitar for the same reason: they thought I was gonna use it to go into the city and play on park benches in the hopes of people giving me money.”

Arthur couldn’t imagine any possible situation involving Curt Wild sitting on a park bench playing guitar while people tossed spare change into his guitar case. The very idea was nauseating in its inappropriateness. “How did you convince your mum to let you take the tap dance lessons?” he asked Gurney.

“It was the teacher who convinced her, really. She wasn’t making enough off the lessons to support herself, so she was encouraging all her students—or their parents, in my case—to make other arrangements so she could leave Toledo and go live with her sister and brother-in-law in Akron.” He chuckled. “If my mother had known of any other ballet teachers, I would probably still be an American now. Even if I’d ended up in the National Ballet, as my teacher used to say I would, I doubt I’d have ever tried to defect, and I’m sure Russia wouldn’t have wanted me. Their ballet is much better than America’s National Ballet.”

“Not knowin’ anything about ballet myself, I’ll take your word for that.” Arthur glanced down at his notes. “The biography I was given didn’t say if you’d attended university or not.”

“I did, after a fashion.” Gurney smiled. “I went to a college of dance. Studied other forms of dance, choreography, the works. Then the December of the year after I graduated, Pearl Harbor changed everything. I didn’t sign up for the army straight away. I wasn’t sure the army wanted men like me, and…I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to fight. I wanted to see the Fascists stopped, but I didn’t think America was any better. I honestly wondered if maybe the whole system would go down—no, I _wanted_ it to go down. I thought if the Axis and the Allies destroyed each other, something better would emerge from the ashes.” A weak smile. “I’m sure I was right that it would have been better if that war had had no winners, but it didn’t take me long to realise that wasn’t going to happen. One side would annihilate the other. And as much as I didn’t like America, I didn’t think it would be good for the world if it was the Axis that won. So I signed up to join the army. They sent me to fight on the European front because I spoke German. But I assume you don’t want the full rundown on everything I did in the war.”

“Not unless there’s anything spectacular or unique that happened,” Arthur said. “I expect my readers already know the basics of how the war went.”

Gurney nodded. “After V-E Day, I was stationed in Berlin. I made a lot of friends with the Russian soldiers who were also stationed there. I’d been studying Russian independently while I was in college, so between my half-grasp on their language and most of them having at least half an understanding of English or German, we had no trouble communicating.” He smiled sadly. “I was in Berlin about a year and a half, and I must have fallen in love a dozen times in that span. First time I’d felt the freedom to have more than just furtive sex in a corner or a dark alley. There was a club in town here—it was torn down in the ‘50s, unfortunately—that catered to our type. I’d never seen one before.”

“Come on, every big city in America had at least one as far back as the ‘20s,” Curt said. “If I could find ‘em in Detroit in the ‘60s, you expect us to believe you couldn’t find ‘em in Toledo in the ‘30s?”

“Did you have an overbearing mother who wanted to groom you into a society darling?” Gurney countered.

“No, I had an overbearing mother that wanted to electrocute me for going down on my brother.” Curt’s voice was cold and hard, unnaturally so.

Gurney stared at him, eyes wide. “I…”

Arthur cleared his throat. “Curt, now’s really not the time to—”

“And you know all that shit you were talking about Hobie Doyle? I bet your cock’s not as big as his!”

“For fuck’s sake, Curt, did you fly me all the way to Germany so I could interview him, or so you could argue with him?!”

Curt glared at Arthur for several seconds, then grabbed Arthur’s beer (Curt’s already being empty) and stormed out of the room. Arthur massaged his temples, listening the stomp of Curt’s feet out in the hallway until they were too quiet to hear.

“What…what just happened?” Gurney asked.

“Curt has some anger management issues,” Arthur sighed, though that hardly explained anything. Arthur hadn’t seen that kind of outburst from Curt before, not at all. “Being in Berlin again is probably calling up a lot of painful memories for him. He spent a year here after breaking up with the love of his life.”

Gurney let out a short, harsh laugh. “From the sound of it, he didn’t spend much of that year sober.”

“I wouldn’t think so, but what…?”

“Ah, you don’t speak German, then. According to Franz, your friend was briefly arrested after he and another singer gave an impromptu concert in a public square ten years ago, without any of the requisite permissions.”

“They’d arrest someone for that?” Even in a Communist country, that seemed harsh.

“It was more because he exposed himself than because of the performance.”

“Ah. Yes, he’s been arrested for that at home as well,” Arthur agreed with a sigh. “In America, audiences somewhat expect it of him—it would be selfish not to share at least the sight of his gifts—but…that must have led to considerable trouble, being arrested in East Berlin for it.”

“They were let out the next day without charges, because someone in authority decided the international furore over the arrest of two rock and roll singers wasn’t worth it,” Gurney said, shaking his head. “That’s why I knew his face; it was all over the papers afterwards. But why would he know the size of Hobie Doyle’s…?”

“A bit of a party in the early ‘70s,” Arthur explained. “The studio did just as good a job covering up his sexuality as it did yours.”

“I had no idea. He never showed up at any of the parties I went to.”

Arthur cleared his throat. “If we can get back on the subject?”

“Yes, I’m sorry.” Gurney took another drink from his glass of vodka. “I spent entirely too much time in that club, as did a few of the other GIs. Eventually, the army followed us there, and worked together with the Soviet army to raid the place.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Needless to say, I was in the club at the time, and when the army found out just what I was doing in the time I was neglecting my duties, I was summarily sent home in disgrace. That, finally, let me escape my mother’s plans for me, and I ended up in California.”

“Did you go there planning to enter acting?”

Gurney laughed sadly. “I was following after another soldier who had been outed in the same military raid on that club. We weren’t dating, but we’d had a few flings, and I was hoping maybe he wanted something more. But it turned out that he was so deeply in the closet that he had a wife and child at home, so that didn’t go anywhere.” Gurney shrugged. “I didn’t have enough money to leave Los Angeles straight away, and I wasn’t going to ask my parents for money, so I started looking for work. When I told the employment agency what my skills were, I was sent straight onto the audition circuit. I thought I’d end up as just one extra body on a chorus line, but the casting agent at Capitol saw potential in me. The rest, I think, can be easily enough surmised.”

Arthur nodded. “When did you start contemplating defecting?”

“After Stalin died, one of my old lovers in the Soviet army contacted me. I’d already been involved in Communist meetings in Los Angeles, and our cell was one of many that had some slight contact with Soviet agents.”

“How did that work?”

“Former Soviet citizens—usually not from Russia, but one of the other countries in the Soviet bloc—who had emigrated to the US while secretly maintaining their allegiance to the USSR,” Gurney explained. “They made contact with independent Communist and Socialist groups in America and helped to align them with the Kremlin’s ideals. Before the HUAC hearings, there were about a dozen of them in California alone; by 1954, there were maybe two. They didn’t have any way of contacting the Kremlin, however. They received their orders in one-way communications. Or so I’ve been told.” Gurney laughed. “They never fully trusted anyone in America, no matter how dedicated we seemed to be to the Communist cause, and the window in which I was trusted after my defection was disappointingly short. As soon as they learned I only liked men, my fall from grace began. They kept using me to make movies for a little while, and they still sometimes call me back from my banishment to make appearances to impress—or appal—visiting dignitaries. Honestly, if I hadn’t been so useful to them for that reason, I’m sure I would have been sent to Siberia back in the early ‘60s.”

“What did your former lover say to you when he got in contact with you in the ‘50s?”

“A lot of things, but mostly he kept telling me that now was the time to leave America behind and dedicate myself entirely to the noble Communist cause.” Gurney smiled weakly. “Of course, he also wanted me to come back to him, but…most days I wasn’t sure if that would be better or worse than what I already had. I barely had to hide what I had with Laurence, and I was enjoying that freedom.”

“But not the romance?”

Gurney shrugged. “There wasn’t much romance. There was conversation—wonderful, stimulating conversation—and there was sex, but there was precious little that counted as romantic. I loved the conversation. The sex was merely average, the kind of sex I could have gotten from almost anyone. If there _had_ been anything really romantic, I might have been more hesitant to leave.” A bitter laugh. “Or maybe not. My position on the inside of such a warped engine as a movie studio had made me detest capitalism even more than seeing the ravages it had wrought in the Depression. I was eager to leave all that behind.”

Arthur nodded. “From interviewing Mr. Laurentz and one of your former comrades, I know you kidnapped Baird Whitlock as a…cover, I suppose—a distraction tactic, even—and that your writer friends were going to blackmail him into silence about their identities because of an indiscretion you learned of from Mr. Laurentz. But I was told you also sold the same story to a gossip columnist. How did you justify that, knowin’ it would let him expose your comrades?”

Gurney laughed, and shook his head. “You’ve got things a bit twisted around. Kidnapping Baird was to weaken the studio system and to let it know just how vulnerable it really was.”

“Yes, your friend said something to that effect as well. But he also said it was to provide a smokescreen for your defection,” Arthur pointed out.

“Not at all. That was what the gossip column was for.” Gurney smiled. “Let me address your question first, then I’ll explain. Baird would never have been _allowed_ to name them, even without the blackmail, because if he did so, the studio would have to admit—even if only to the police—not only that he had been kidnapped, but that they had _eagerly_ paid his ransom. Eddie Mannix, the man who ran Capitol for its bourgeois owner in New York, was much too clever to allow that to happen. If word ever got out that the studio had paid up rather than turn to the police for help, everyone would have been trying to kidnap a star and get rich. No, their identities were completely safe. The ones who worked at Capitol would have lost their jobs, but the studio wouldn’t have dared explain why to any other studio that might think about hiring them. As to the story…a serious journalist has probably never heard of them, but back in the ‘50s, they were infamous. Thora and Thessaly Thacker, identical twins who absolutely detested each other, both gossip columnists who were convinced they were real journalists. They would do anything for a salacious story, but at the heart of it they were also good, honest souls. They’d bend any number of rules to learn who was having an affair with whom, but they’d never print a lie. And if something they exposed caused a personal catastrophe, they were willing to set it right. That’s why I gave Thora the story about Laurence and Baird. _That_ was to be the cover for my disappearance.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“It was supposed to run the same day the submarine showed up. I’m not sure why it didn’t.” Gurney shook his head. “Really, everything fell apart because of that. Because of that article, everyone at the set was supposed to _expect_ Baird to disappear for long spans of time to drown his sorrows, so no one would have acted surprised at him going missing until the ransom note was delivered. And then at my disappearance, everyone at the studio was sure to assume that I had been Thora’s source, and had absented myself because of it. When I still didn’t return and other people started noticing, Thora would have come forward, alarmed at the thought that I might have killed myself in guilt over betraying my lover. That assumption of hers—and she _would_ have assumed it, as I let her believe I was drunk when I told her—would have cemented the idea in everyone’s minds, and they would have believed me dead until I turned up safe and sound in Moscow.”

Arthur frowned down at his notes where he had outlined that mishmash. “Seems like a very convoluted plan,” he commented.

“I know it does, but it really was as close to perfect as I could make it. If that article had been printed in time, everything would have worked just right.” Gurney frowned. “Or it would have if someone hadn’t spotted the submarine.”

“Weren’t you worried about what that story was going to do to Mr. Laurentz’s career?” Arthur asked.

“I was counting on it.” Gurney smiled sheepishly. “I had things I wanted that story to accomplish above and beyond temporarily covering my exit from Hollywood. America at the time liked to pretend men like us didn’t exist. When they did acknowledge that we existed, it was as freaks and perverts. That story would have forced them to admit that not only did we exist, but some of us were true artists.” He shook his head. “But I had no delusions that it wouldn’t ruin Laurence’s career. I wanted it to, so he’d leave America and return to England.”

“Why?”

“When I was in Moscow and he was in England, it would have been an easy matter to contact him, entice him into coming to join me. I knew the Soviet filmmakers would be no good, not compared to what I was used to. I wanted Laurence to come to Russia, too, and direct my pictures. I don’t know if I was consciously thinking I wanted to keep him on as a lover, too, but in retrospect I can see that my life over the last thirty years would have been much better if I could have.”

“I wonder if he’d feel the same,” Arthur thought aloud.

“I’m sure he’s had a much less satisfying love life since retiring from directing, so I would think so.”

“Actually, he’s been in a steady relationship for the last thirty years. The man he started seeing after you left turned out to be ‘the one,’ though he certainly wasn’t expecting that when it started.”

“I didn’t know he was in a long-term relationship,” Gurney said, looking astonished. “On the rare occasions I was able to see an American paper that mentioned him, there never seemed to be anyone.”

Arthur smiled, biting his lip and wondering if he should tell Gurney just who had replaced him in Laurence Laurentz’s life…


	10. Chapter 10

**Hollywood, 1955**

Hobie’d been to more’n his fair share of movie openings, but he’d never felt quite like this at one. The picture hadn’t even started yet, and he was already more nervous than a lone heifer surrounded by hungry wolves. Mr. Mannix had insisted he show up in a tuxedo, and he couldn’t help tugging on the tie every couple seconds. Laurence had tied it for him, so it wasn’t none too tight, but it still made him feel like he just couldn’t take a breath.

“Stop your fussing, Hobie,” Carlotta said from beside him, taking his hand in both of hers and pulling it away from his tie. “You look so pretty; you don’t want to ruin that, do you?”

“Cain’t breathe,” Hobie muttered, looking around them. The theater seemed packed more full of people than he’d ever seen, like they was sitting on the arm rests between the seats and the backs of the seats and standing in every inch of the aisles. “There’s no air in here.”

“Are you not feeling well?” Carlotta put one of her tiny hands on his forehead, leaning in closer as she did so. “You don’t have to worry, Hobie,” she whispered. “You know he’s here. He’s just in the back, that’s all. Calm down.”

Hobie appreciated the thought, but Laurence had been the last thing on his mind. He hadn’t really had _anything_ on his mind. He just couldn’t breathe. Too many people. Too many eyes on him. No one ever cared about the opening of one of his pictures before. They hadn’t turned out half so many for _Merrily We Dance_ , neither. But that had turned out pretty good if Hobie did say so himself, and now everyone seemed to expect Hobie to be able to do this kind of studio picture every single time.

He was going to lose his ever-loving mind if he had to keep this up.

By the time the lights finally went dark, Hobie must have messed with his collar once too many times, because Carlotta had actually slapped his hands away from it that last time. That made everyone stare at them, and made Hobie even more nervous. This picture just wasn’t him. Not even the parts they’d added to try and make it fit him better.

The picture opened like one of Hobie’s real pictures: on a ranch, with Hobie on horseback, riding home with the sunset in the background. It wasn’t Whitey—the studio had insisted on that—but a brown mare with a sweet disposition. She wouldn’t have done for anything fancy, but she cut a fine picture riding all peaceful-like. That shot had been Hobie’s favorite to film in the whole thing.

Carlotta had been playing the rancher’s daughter, and Hobie was playing a hired hand, who loved her from afar, only then for some reason got it in his head that he couldn’t tell her so without making some money, and a man at the saloon tricked him into thinking he’d make more money working a job in the city than staying on at the ranch. Didn’t make no kind of sense that Hobie could see, but the audience accepted it.

In the city, Hobie’s character was tricked into joining the Navy, and then the picture more or less became what it would have been with Burt Gurney, the long and lonely tale of a bunch of fellas stuck on a boat for eight months, dancing and singing about how much they missed gals and all that, even though they didn’t seem to miss ‘em none, judging by the way they carried on with each other. In the original version, there was a few fantasy sequences with all sorts of different gals, and then they ended up on a little tropical island that had nothing but gals on it for one final number that was just sickening no matter how Hobie looked at it. Now all them fantasies were about Carlotta instead of different gals each time, and instead of a made up island, they landed in Hawaii, and somehow Carlotta had got there first and instead of the song being about all them sailors planning to get a bunch of ignorant savage gals pregnant, it was about all them sailors finding regular gals in port who they hoped to get real sweet with.

It was still sickening enough that Hobie hoped the whole thing was set in December of ‘41 and they’d all get drawn into the war right quick after the credits rolled.

Watching the picture wasn’t too bad, excepting during the “No Dames” number. Mr. Seslum had told Hobie there’d be shots of some other fella dancing cut in so it’d look like Hobie was dancing, too. Hobie hadn’t liked that none, but he hadn’t wanted to try learning how to dance, neither, so he’d tried to tell himself that it was okay.

It wasn’t okay. He could hear the audience reacting to those shots. He could _feel_ them thinking that was really him. He didn’t need that fella behind him to lean forward and compliment him on his dancing to know the audience was hoodwinked. If there was anything Hobie didn’t like about the picture business, it was getting the credit for someone else’s hard work. That’d been bad enough on his regular pictures, but in this case it was plum intolerable, ‘specially since there wasn’t no line in the credits saying who’d done his dancing for him.

After the picture was over, ‘course there was the usual mess of photos to be taken with all the other folks who’d been in it, or who just happened to come. Lots of other actors, even a few directors, but not Laurence. Hobie didn’t see him in the lobby the whole time they was having their photos taken. That didn’t feel right, spending all that time with folks he’d barely met and who’d never talk to him regular-like and not even get to see the most important person in his life, not no how.

But he didn’t think he was bitter about it. Not until they got to the restaurant. Then all of the sudden he couldn’t feel anything else. He didn’t even set down first. “Where’d you go?” he asked, staring down at Laurence, who was sitting there all happy as a clam, with a drink in front of him.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Laurence said, looking away from him. “And sit down, you’ll cause a scene.”

“Mebbe I wanna cause a scene!”

“Hobie, sit,” Carlotta urged, tugging on his arm. “Don’t fight.”

“I’m not fightin’,” Hobie insisted, even as he sat down. “I jest don’t thank it was right, you leavin’ without me—without us.”

Laurence sighed. “Kindly put away your wounded puppy look,” he said. “You know perfectly well I couldn’t be seen with you there. Even this is a gamble.” He gestured at the table. “Our third number will only cover so many sins in the eyes of Eddie Mannix.”

“Oh, pooh-pooh to him!” Carlotta laughed. “What can he have to say, eh? The two lovebirds sharing dinner with a close friend, that’s all they see,” she said, gesturing at the rest of the restaurant. Then she smiled. “They just mistake which one is the other bird. But _I_ ’m not going to tell them, and _you_ aren’t going to tell them, so who can it hurt?”

“I certainly hope you’re right,” Laurence said, “but directly after the movie it would have been another story entirely. Besides, I had other reasons for not wanting to speak to anyone in that theater.”

Hobie tried not to think about those other reasons, most days. He’d always known about it—jest ‘bout everyone in Hollywood had known about it—but the more sweet he’d gotten on Laurence, the less he’d wanted to think about him and—

A thought struck Hobie so hard that it just about knocked his teeth out. “Hey…that warn’t why they didn’t credit who was dancin’ for me, was it? ‘Cause it was _him_?”

“Of course it is,” Laurence sighed. “And that’s why they only did it for the one number, because that’s the only one he’d filmed before he…left.”

“You knew?”

“It’s what I would have done in Seslum’s shoes, so I expected it, but I wasn’t sure until I saw the footage for myself,” Laurence assured him, with a gentle smile. “If I’d been told for certain, I would have let you know.”

That was enough of a relief that Hobie let Carlotta change the subject to the menu and what they were going to order. She had a good head for that kind of thing, knowing when to change the subject so no one’d figure them out. Hobie sometimes wondered if she was having to hide a secret, too—like maybe she was a gal who liked other gals—but he didn’t think it’d be right to ask. If she wanted to share her secret, she’d do it herself without him needing to prompt her none.

“Well, this is a surprising gathering,” a woman’s voice said out of nowhere, while they were still waiting for the waiter to take their order. It was one of them two unsettling lady reporters. Hobie wasn’t sure which: he’d never figured out how to tell them apart.

“Is it?” Laurence asked, smiling at her pleasantly. “What could be so surprising about a pleasant young couple keeping a lonely old man company for an nice meal?”

“Lonely old man my eye,” she retorted.

“That is hardly ladylike, Miss Thacker,” Laurence said, shaking his head.

“The news doesn’t wait for ladylike manners, Mr. Laurentz.”

“And you see news in three former co-workers sharing a meal together?” Laurence chuckled. “Really, my dear Thora—may I call you Thora?”

“You may not.”

Laurence cleared his throat, his eyes narrowing jest a little. He didn’t like it none when he wasn’t in control, and this Thora wasn’t letting him have any control over nothing. Hobie wished he could help, but it seemed outta his league. “As I was saying, Miss Thacker, I’m sure you would have great difficulty in convincing your readers that there was anything newsworthy in three film professionals sharing a meal to reminisce over their times together on the studio lot,” Laurence said, smiling at her like a hungry wolf watching the sole cowpoke between him and a wounded calf.

“Not when two of those three just came from the premiere of a film that was supposed to star such a close _associate_ of the third,” Thora replied, leaning in closer. “Isn’t that so?”

Laurence’s eyes narrowed. “As our _association_ ended quite abruptly and permanently nearly a year ago, I do not see any news in that.”

“No?” She laughed. It was cold and artificial. Made Hobie’s skin crawl. “I see all _sorts_ of news in that,” she said, casting a wicked gaze in Hobie’s direction. “Maybe our inarticulate little friend here replaced your old associate in more ways than one?”

“You would never dare to print such a baseless accusation,” Laurence said, glaring at her with a hate Hobie had never seen on his face before, not even when those caterers spilled food all over the set’s fancy carpet.

“No, I suppose I wouldn’t,” she agreed, with a laugh. “I’d much rather write about the news from Paris. You have heard it, I suppose?”

“Paris? No, I have not.”

Thora laughed. “Your old associate’s new movie just opened there. The Parisian critics all adored it. Said what a great talent he is, and how he was so terribly wasted in his American pictures.”

Laurence laughed at that. “And you believed them? My dear Miss Thacker, I had no idea you were so naïve. The French have the finest chefs in the world, but they are dreadfully lacking in sense where the theater is concerned. They haven’t had a good playwright since Moliere, nor a good actor since Sarah Bernhardt died. But of course they can’t recognize the difference between a quality film and utter rubbish.”

“Hmmm…how do _your_ films do there, Mr. Laurentz?”

“Terribly.”

Thora scowled, cast one more glance at Hobie and Carlotta, then left without another word.

“How d’you tell them two apart?” Hobie asked, once Thora had gotten far enough away not to hear him. She’d stopped a few tables away to talk to that new fella from Universal. “I cain’t never tell which one I’m talkin’ to.”

“That’s simple, my dear boy. Thessaly dotes on the idea of you two as a couple, and Thora is enraged by the sight of you.” Laurence smiled. “Without that, it’s nearly impossible to tell them apart, and certainly not worth the effort.”

Just knowing one of those gossips was lurking about the place made dinner short and quiet, and soon Hobie was taking Carlotta home. Once she was dropped off, his driver took Hobie back to his own apartment, and Hobie waited as long as he could—maybe five whole minutes—before hopping in his own car and heading to Laurence’s house in Laurel Canyon.

Normally, Laurence would welcome him in with a “What took you so long, my dear boy?” but tonight he didn’t say a word. After letting Hobie in, he went over to his favorite chair and sat down, looking all distant. His dog came over and nudged his knee with his nose until Laurence reached down to pet him.

“You’ve even got Henry worried ‘bout you,” Hobie said, coming over to set on the next chair over. “This because of what that woman said?”

Laurence sighed, still petting the dog in an absent way. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t let it get to me like this.”

“Naw, it’s only natural you’d be upset. It was…well, I don’t rightly know what it was like fer you, goin’ through that, but anyone can see it was real rough. You got ever’ right to be upset.” Hobie bit his lip. “You, uh, you want me to go?”

Laurence smiled for him weakly. “I don’t think I should like to be alone just now. It might be unhealthy. If you can forgive an evening in which I am less than pleasant company…”

“Shucks, jest bein’ ‘round you is good enough for me,” Hobie assured him, scooting his chair a little closer. “You know that, right?” he added, setting a hand on Laurence’s leg.

Laurence took Hobie’s hand in his own, and squeezed it tightly. “Some days I wonder what I could have done to deserve you,” he said, his voice warm and smiling just as bright as his face.

***

**London, 1984**

“Go on in; he’ll see you now.” They were not the words Arthur wanted to hear, really. Based on everything he had heard about Jerry Devine—not to mention everything he had read about him, and the filmed interviews he had seen—he really didn’t want to meet the man, and certainly didn’t want to be trying to argue with him to get the master recordings of Curt’s music back.

But he did as he was told, and opened the door into the office. It was still decorated the way Mandy Slade had described it, including the larger-than-life-size picture of Devine dressed as Marilyn Monroe on the wall behind his desk. Devine didn’t look much different than he had in the video footage Arthur had seen in the wake of Brian’s shooting stunt being exposed, except that he was now dressed in a sensible business suit.

Devine’s blank expression soon contorted into a sneer. “Let me guess,” he said. “Your boyfriend thought that since you’re English and I’m English, you’d be able to talk me into handing over those recordings. Or maybe whoever’s holding his lead at the moment assumed that I’m so clueless that I wouldn’t have seen or understood all the photographs of you tucked under Curt Wild’s arm.”

Arthur did his best not to wince. “Clueless isn’t the word any of us would ‘ave used, and Curt’s not a dog on a lead, but otherwise you’re right,” he admitted. “I didn’t know those pictures were bein’ published outside New York.”

“Yes, anyone back home who didn’t know you’re a fairy does now,” Devine assured him, with a cold smile.

“Doubt there’s anyone who didn’t know,” Arthur sighed. His brother was not known for keeping secrets. Not that he could think of a single soul back in Manchester whose opinion mattered to him; Arthur had never had any friends to begin with, and his schoolmates had treated him like a leper even without knowing he was different than they were.

Devine shrugged. “Do you actually have anything to add to the tired offers the label in New York has been making?”

“Not exactly,” Arthur admitted, taking a seat opposite the desk, “but I ‘ave a fresh perspective on it.”

“I’m listening.”

“Curt’s manager showed me the text of the deal the label’s offered you, and he showed me the text of the deal it struck with Curt’s old label to get _those_ recordings. Yours is significantly better; you’re gettin’ almost twice as much money per song as they did.”

Devine shook his head. “Bijou Music is not a large corporate label like that one. They can afford to give up an artist’s past works for a song because they have so many other artists’ work to support them. I only have a handful of artists’ work in my vaults. I cannot give them up so lightly.”

Arthur forced himself to laugh. “You and I both know that’s rubbish.”

“Why would you say that?”

“You ‘aven’t put out a new pressing of ‘Danger Zone’ in years. There was one second pressing in ’78, and that’s it. You’re not puttin’ one out now, even though you know Curt’s albums are sellin’ out in stores all over the world. You ‘aven’t even tried releasing new pressings of Brian’s music, despite the new fans discovering him because of all this.”

Devine scowled. “Of course I’m not currently preparing a new pressing. I’m still waiting to see if his current label will provide an offer worth my time.”

“You wouldn’t be even if the label hadn’t been negotiating with you for nearly two months. Because you detest everything about Curt, including his music.”

“Of course I do. But that has nothing to do with why I’m not rereleasing ‘Danger Zone.’ I don’t allow my personal feelings to get in the way of business.” Devine shook his head. “I’m not going to do a new run of it because I would lose too much money on it.”

“Lose money?” Arthur repeated, appalled. “But fans are practically fightin' over the few copies they can find!”

“Right now, yes. They want to support the poor unfortunate artist after his brush with death. But just how long do you think that enthusiasm is going to last? Inside of six months, they’ll all have forgotten about the attack, and I’d have a warehouse full of records I couldn’t shift with a crane.”

“What makes you think they wouldn’t still sell after the immediate flurry of support stops?” Arthur asked. It didn’t make a lick of sense to him.

“Because the music is rubbish.”

“It’s not rubbish!”

Arthur hadn’t meant to shout—it hadn’t registered as a shout when he said it—but it must have been a particularly loud shout, because there was almost immediately a commotion in the waiting room outside, which quickly resolved into the receptionist’s voice exclaiming “You can’t go in there!” as the door was opened, letting Curt storm into the room.

Devine let out a weary sigh. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“Bull fucking shit,” Curt growled, then whirled his head to look at Arthur, who jumped slightly at the suddenness of the gesture. “Gimme the contract.”

Uneasily, Arthur took the contract out of his satchel, and handed it over. Curt grabbed a pen off Devine’s desk, turned the contract to its second page, and scratched out about half a line of text, then turned it to face Devine.

“There. Happy now?”

Devine picked up the contract and looked at what Curt had done. “I don’t see what about that is supposed to make me happy,” he said, tossing the contract back down on the desk.

“If you keep the European distribution rights, then you can get the master recordings back any time you need them. You don’t lose shit _and_ you get paid a fucking tonne of money for something that you have no right to in the first place.”

“You signed the contract that gave me the right to it.”

Curt grimaced. “That wasn’t me that signed it—that was methadone and whiskey.”

Devine merely shrugged with a placid smile. Obviously, he didn’t care in the least that he had taken advantage of someone who hadn’t been in a mental state to understand his own best interests. Unfortunately, that didn’t surprise Arthur at all.

“Just sign it, you ugly motherfucker,” Curt growled.

“Curt, insulting him isn’t going to make him want to cooperate,” Arthur said, setting a hand on his good arm. There was another way, but Arthur hardly liked to resort to it, knowing all too well how it felt to be on the receiving end. “We should take our cue from Brian here,” he said.

“Huh?” Curt didn’t get it. Yet.

“How long has it been since you’ve spoken to Brian, Mr. Devine?”

Devine’s smile turned into a scowl. “His contract with me expired in 1976. I hadn’t spoken to him for some six or seven months before the contract expired.”

“Then you don’t know what he’s up to these days,” Arthur said, nodding. “You’re probably happier that way. But…well, he’s become quite vicious to those who wrong him. In an under the table sort of way, of course.”

“And I suppose you’re going to say that he’s gone so far in making up with…him…” Devine gestured at Curt, apparently unable to find an appropriate epithet he could safely use in front of an already angry Curt, “that he’s going to decide I’ve ‘wronged’ him?”

“We’re getting along pretty well now,” Curt pointed out. “Brian will definitely take my side in this.”

“And with his pre-existing grudge against you…” Arthur shook his head. “Who knows what might happen if he were to finally tell his side of the story.”

“What are you talking about?” Devine asked, his eyes narrowed.

“I heard the ‘ole story from Mandy Slade,” Arthur assured him. “How Brian begged for time off his gruelling concert tour in order to 'ave time to put himself back together after such a devastating break-up, and how you wouldn’t let him. And what happened at his very next big show?” Arthur spread his hands weakly.

“That’s a coincidence,” Devine insisted, a particularly pathetic excuse.

“It didn’t sound that way when Mandy told the story. And it won’t sound that way when Brian tells it. And if he should also talk about how you forced one of his female employees into gratifyin’ you sexually…”

“That’s a lie!” Devine shouted, getting to his feet.

“Shannon _still_ hates you,” Curt said, with a laugh. “You’re the only person in the world she hates more than me.”

“I never forced her to do anything.”

“But she thought she’d lose her job if she refused you, didn’t she?” Arthur had heard all too many tales of that sort of thing in every industry. It was nothing new—the ‘casting couch’ Laurentz had talked about was old hat way back in the days of _On Wings as Eagles_ —but it would still prompt a lot of ill will if described properly, especially considering that Shannon was about Arthur’s age and Devine was about ten years older than Curt…

“Even if she did think that, what of it? There’s no law against it, and even if there was, how could you prove it, and after so many years?”

“Who needs there to be a law?” Arthur asked. “All that’s needed is moral outrage against your ghastly behaviour, enough to make fans hesitate to buy any record put out by Bijou Music, enough to make bands break their contracts and go elsewhere…”

Devine sat down again, glancing over at the contract. “Any court in the world would call this blackmail.”

“How could it be blackmail?” Arthur asked, smiling as sweetly as he could despite the way his heart was pounding in terror at what he was doing and saying. “All we’re askin’ you to do is sign a contract that will give you a lot of money just for handing over a few recordings to their original artist. What could be wrong with that?”

Devine kept looking at him for several minutes, then turned a cold glare at Curt. “Fine,” he said, pulling the contract closer to him. “I’ll sign it just to get rid of you lot.”

“See how easy that was?” Arthur managed to say before his last nerve failed him, and he fell into a trembling sort of silence, feeling like he’d never manage to speak ever again.

Once the contract was signed, Arthur tucked it back into his satchel, and he and Curt left the office as quickly as they could. When they were back out on the street, Curt kissed him passionately. “You were fucking brilliant in there!” he said. “C’mon, let’s go for a drink.”

Arthur opened his mouth to object—he had work he had to do, after all—but he still couldn’t drum up any more words, and instead meekly followed Curt into the car. Curt told the driver to take them to the Rainbow Theatre, sending a shiver of pleasure through Arthur’s whole body. That was where they had first met, almost ten years ago, but why was Curt taking them there _now_? It was still mid-morning; the theatre would be closed, and none of the pubs in that neighbourhood would be open yet, either.

When they got there, Curt took Arthur’s satchel away from him, and pulled the contract out of it, handing it over to the driver. “Take this back to Phil at the hotel,” he said. “We’ll call the hotel if we need to be picked up.”

“Yes, Mr. Wild,” the driver replied as they got out. He drove away as soon as the car doors were shut behind them.

“C’mon, we’ll go around to the stage door,” Curt said, leading Arthur by the hand.

Arthur almost managed to object that the door was certain to be locked at this time of day, but he didn’t get further than a single word into it before they reached the door, which was not only unlocked but actually propped open. Had Curt called ahead to ask someone to let them in? Why? Surely he didn’t think it was safe for them to go up to the roof and make love in the middle of the day! They had gotten away with it ten years ago because it had been something like four in the morning, so most of the city was asleep, and even if anyone _had_ seen them, in 1975 that wasn’t such a big deal. In 1984, it was probably a capital crime.

Curt led Arthur inside the backstage area, which was mostly littered with sets and props for the Tudor revenge drama that the posters out front were advertising. However, nestled in between some 16th century chairs and a rack of doublets and stiff-collared gowns, a folding table had been set up with a dozen or so lagers between a platter of sloppy homemade biscuits and a tray of soggy chips. Curt looked around. “Hey, where the fuck is everybody?” he shouted.

The sound of something being dropped on the stage sounded in cacophonous harmony with doors closing in the direction of the dressing rooms. Arthur wasn’t sure which direction to look in, and ended up being taken by surprise when he heard a familiar voice shout his name.

“Ray?” Arthur had barely turned to face the stage in time to see Ray before the other man reached him and pulled him into a big hug. “What—what’s—”

“You still look fabulous, love,” Ray said, running his fingers through Arthur’s hair and mussing it up awfully.

“Uh…”

The rest of the band was upon them before Arthur could find any way to process what was happening. They were hardly recognisable as the Flaming Creatures: except that Malcolm was still wearing his trademark hat, they were dressed like any other ‘80s rock band might be in between performances. Which is to say that they were dressed pretty much like every other man on the street, denims and T-shirts, as if they had never been the glittering icons that Arthur had spent years living with. And yet their faces hadn’t much changed—certainly hadn’t changed as much as Arthur’s had—and they looked as happy to see him as they had on Arthur’s first night in London, when he had essentially been chatted up by the entire band _en masse_ (even if only Ray had gotten the privilege of being his first).

Once the chaos of greetings and “I’ve missed you, love,” died down, Arthur was—of course!—expected to tell the Creatures all about the story he was working on that had brought him back to London after all these years. Pearl helpfully offered to visit a few rental shops and get every Burt Gurney movie he could find so Arthur could check the credits, and Billy offered his flat as a place to watch them, saying that Pearl’s was much too cluttered for it. Then, naturally, Arthur and Curt (by now on his second lager) had to tell the Creatures all about the attack on the concert, and how that finally brought them together, and everything they’d been doing since.

“But what are you doing here?” Arthur finally asked, looking at the Creatures. “How…?”

Curt laughed. “I saw a picture of them on the walls in Jerry’s office. Turns out they’re with Bijou Music now, so the receptionist had their numbers. Thought you might need some friendly faces after dealing with Jerry.”

Arthur tried to find the right words to thank him with, but nothing seemed strong enough, so he kissed him instead. “You’re a marvel,” he said.

“Of course I am!” Curt replied, with an expression of comically overstated egotism.

Arthur tightened his arm’s grip around Curt, then turned to look at his former lovers again. “But tell me all about what you’re up to now,” he said. “I ‘aven’t heard from any of you in years, seems like.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cough* Time seems to move more slowly in Jerry Devine's office than in the rest of the world. *cough*
> 
> (Or maybe I just suck as a writer...)


	11. Chapter 11

They had ended up wasting the entire rest of the morning in the backstage area of the Rainbow Theatre talking to the Creatures. It was wonderful getting to catch up with the four men who hard arguably been the most important ones of Arthur’s teenage years—certainly he owed them his life, given everything they had done for him—but they had very limited time in London, and Arthur still had a lot of work he needed to do, and spending time with them had not gotten any of it done. Realistically, he should have left for the library straight away, promising to have a late dinner with them instead of catching up then and there, but as his nerves had not yet recovered from the meeting with Jerry Devine, that had not occurred to him until it was far too late.

Once Arthur finally got to the library, though! It was such a relief, having access to unexpurgated records! As bad as Thatcher was, at least she wasn’t going about censoring newspaper archives (yet). That was the good news. The bad news was that the library didn’t have as many microform copies of American newspapers as Arthur would have liked, especially not from the 1950s. In fact, they barely had any other than the _New York Times_. Still, between those records and the articles in the English papers, Arthur had a very firm idea of what he wanted to look for in the credits of those Burt Gurney movies.

The articles on the trial of the Communist screenwriters was painfully vague because the courtroom had been sealed against journalists, as were the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings involving Gurney’s defection, but one thing that was made clear despite the lack of first-hand details was that the matter of Gurney’s Cyrillic tattoo was brought up in both situations, and that numerous people from both the make-up and costume departments came under suspicion of complicity by the HUAC, on the assumption that since they saw and covered up the tattoo on a regular basis, they must have had Communist sympathies as well. Given the story he had told to Laurentz—which, it turned out, was actually the truth—it didn’t seem likely to Arthur that anyone at the studio had thought much about the tattoo: since Gurney had only been in the closet publically, not around his co-workers, he would have told them the same thing he told his lover, and they would have accepted it without a second thought.

The question was, why in the world would the Reynolds administration be so concerned with covering up the suspected—and ultimately disproven—complicity of make-up and wardrobe staff at Capitol Pictures? That hardly seemed the sort of people that Reynolds had any interest in. A momentary fantasy played out before Arthur’s eyes that the professionally homophobic Reynolds had once had an affair with another man, and was trying to hide the other man’s existence from the world in this manner, but Arthur knew it was utter rot, no matter how delicious the irony of it would have been.

It was nearly seven by the time Arthur and Curt arrived at Billy’s flat. Since Billy hadn’t eaten yet, either, Curt went out to get take-out for all four of them (Pearl had stayed to watch the movies he had rented), while Arthur set up to see what he could learn from them. Pearl had only been able to find tapes of four of Gurney’s movies. There had been a total of six on the shelves, but the other two had been rented out to someone else. Hopefully, the four they had would be enough…

“Which one do you want to watch first?” Pearl asked, holding out two of the tapes.

“Pearl, I’m not watching the movies themselves,” Arthur sighed. “Just the credits.”

“Oh.”

“You can watch them after,” Arthur assured him, with a smile. “But the movies themselves don’t matter to my story. I just need to see who worked on the costumes and make-up to see if I can figure out who the cover-up is about.”

“Might help your story if you’ve seen at least one of his movies,” Billy said. “So you can talk about what they’re like, what his skills are, all that.”

“That’s true,” Arthur agreed, looking at the four available movies. None of them were the one he’d seen in Paris—that had been about a carnival—and none of them looked terribly appealing, either. “We’ll start with the credits on this one,” he said, picking up one of the tapes, “since it looks like the worst of the lot.”

Billy laughed, and put the tape in his VCR. As the opening credits came to the screen that covered technical details like costume and make-up, Billy paused it so Arthur could write down the associated names. Though he hardly needed to, it turned out…

By the time Curt arrived back with four take-out orders of curry, Arthur was just finishing up with the second set of credits. “How’s it going?” Curt asked as he passed out the food.

“Well, I know who Reynolds is covering for,” Arthur said, sighing as he pointed to the screen.

The other three all peered at the screen. “Yeah, I don’t get it,” Curt said. “One of those names supposed to mean something to me?”

“Costume design.”

Curt looked at the screen again. “Miriam Andrews. No, doesn’t ring a bell.”

Arthur fetched his satchel and took out the—now rather battered—copy of _Weekly News_ that had his article in it. He flipped through the pages to the advertisement he remembered being just after his article. Surrounded by photographs of runway-style clothing was the name “Miriam!” scrawled in red lipstick on a mirror. At the bottom of the page was a photograph of the First Lady at some charity event or other, standing arm-in-arm with the designer herself.

“So?” Curt shook his head. “That’s Reynolds’ old maid sister.”

“She’s not unmarried,” Arthur corrected, “but divorced. And her ex-husband’s name was Andrews. She went back to using her maiden name in the early ‘60s.”

Curt sat down beside him. “Seriously? You think all this shit is ‘cause Reynolds wants to protect his sister’s reputation? Someone got disappeared over _that_?”

Arthur nodded. “That’s the way it looks. I’ll check the records when we get back to America, but the Reynolds family is from Los Angeles originally. What are the odds that there would be two women named Miriam Andrews in Los Angeles who were both clothing designers?”

Curt sighed. “That’s just fucking sick. Unless she actually _was_ a Communist, too.”

“I think that would be even worse.” Arthur shook his head. “Besides, according to the articles I found, everyone from Capitol’s wardrobe and make-up departments who were suspected of complicity were eventually cleared of all charges.”

“Motherfucker’s not doing it for her, then,” Curt said. “He just doesn’t want any stain on his precious image.”

“Looks that way,” Arthur agreed, stopping the tape. “Well, at least it will make a sensational story.”

“Yeah, but if they actually killed that woman…”

“Let’s hope they didn’t.” There wasn’t much they could do about it other than hoping, at this point, after all. Arthur tried to smile. “Anyway, let’s eat before the food gets cold. Which of the two remaining movies do you want to watch?”

“We’re actually gonna watch one?” Curt grimaced. “Man, I saw this shit when it was new. Wasting your time. The guy’s a cut-rate Gene Kelly performing total crap, and a spoiled little rich kid on top of that.”

“Yes, Curt, I know. But Billy was right that I should see one of his movies to be able to discuss them knowledgeably in my article. So which do you want to see? The one where he’s a small-town boy come to the big city, or the one where he’s a tourist in Germany?”

Curt’s eyes widened in disgust. “Ugh, those sound like even worse trash than the ones I remember.” He sighed. “I guess let’s watch the one in Germany. We should at least get a laugh out of how fucked up it is.”

Arthur nodded, and Billy started changing the tapes. “It’s possible it won’t be as inaccurate as it might ‘ave been. He did spend a lot of time stationed in Germany, after all.”

“War-torn Germany is not really the same thing,” Curt pointed out. “Bet the movie’s set in interwar Germany, anyway.”

“Looks that way,” Billy commented, having a look at the back. “Sounds like it’s about the time the Nazis first came to power.”

“Too bad it won’t go all _Cabaret_ and actually comment on that,” Curt sighed.

“That’d be asking a lot from the mid-fifties,” Arthur chuckled. “Best we could hope for is a _Sound of Music_ approach. And even that’s probably hoping for too much.”

It turned out, they learned as the movie started, that the description on the box had been misleading: the movie wasn’t set in interwar Germany, but pre-war Germany, and there was a running attempt-at-a-gag about the Kaiser’s moustache, which Gurney’s character seemed to find quite hilarious. (Admittedly, it was a rather silly-looking moustache, but it struck Arthur as being anachronistic as well as horribly rude for the character to laugh every time he saw a picture of the Kaiser.) As Curt had said, the movie was utter rubbish, and Arthur didn’t think America had lost anything worth being missed when all its copies were burnt, but he didn’t think it would be prudent to say so in his article…

***

**Los Angeles, 1956**

Laurence was relieved, on the car pulling up to his house, to see the lights on inside. He didn’t let the driver carry his bags inside, insisting that they be left with him on the front porch. Mannix _probably_ wouldn’t have sent a driver who didn’t know who was inside taking care of Henry, but he didn’t dare take that chance. It would destroy Hobie’s career—which would not, admittedly, be any great loss as far as quality cinema went—if the public found out the truth about him now.

As the car started pulling away, Laurence opened the door and shifted his bags just inside the door. He could leave them there until later; he didn’t have the strength to deal with them right now. What he needed was a drink, or…

“Laurence?” Hobie’s voice preceded the sound of four running feet and excited yelping.

Laurence crouched down to accept Henry’s eager affection, but he was still bowled off his feet by the beagle’s exuberance, falling backwards against the door. His tensions were already melting away as Henry licked and nuzzled his face. Some days, a dog was even better than a lover.

But maybe this wasn’t one of those days. Hobie looked positively beautiful as he came around the corner; almost angelic as he beamed a smile down at them. “He’s shore been lonesome without you,” he said. “Me, too.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Laurence said, trying to restrain Henry a bit. “I should not want to be the only one who was lonely.”

Hobie helped him back to his feet, and used his own shirt to mop a bit of the canine saliva off Laurence’s face. “I bet you could use a good dinner,” he said. “Want me to fire up the grill? I made shore to have some nice steaks ready.”

“At present, I just want a cup of tea,” Laurence assured him. “Possibly with a nip of brandy in it.”

“I’ll let you handle that,” Hobie said, with a weak smile. “I still ain’t got the knack of it.”

“It really isn’t difficult.” Laurence stroked a spare curl away from Hobie’s forehead. “Just watch how I do it.”

Hobie sighed as Laurence started heading into the kitchen. “That ain’t worked so good in the past…”

“Have you been staying here while I was away?” Laurence asked, noting the giddy eagerness as Henry ran along beside him.

“Not most nights,” Hobie said. “Mr. Mannix tol’ me people might notice if I did that. But I been spendin’ every free day here to keep Henry comp’ny. Guess he still don’t accept me like he does you,” he added, with a sigh.

Laurence chuckled. “At least he likes you. He positively detested…a certain past lover. I had to put him out in the yard every time he came over.” He had probably been reacting to the smell of that vile little lap dog. Or perhaps Henry was just a better judge of people than Laurence was…

As soon as he reached the kitchen, Laurence put the kettle on, and got the tea out of the cupboard. But by that point his tension was returning, and he felt an undeniable urge to get off his feet, practically slumping into a chair at the table. “You all right?” Hobie asked, sitting opposite him, looking concerned. “You look mighty tired.”

“It was quite a draining experience.”

“Them politicians didn’t treat you right.”

Despite himself, Laurence laughed. “If they were in the habit of treating people with kindness, they would not be politicians. Particularly not in this country.”

Hobie moved to a chair next to Laurence’s, taking his hand warmly as he sat down again.

“I am touched by your solicitude, but I really am quite all right,” Laurence said, smiling at him. “It was the others who were treated the worst.”

Hobie frowned, and shook his head. “That jest ain’t right. All them folks in make-up and wardrobe is the salt of the earth. Nicest folks around, an’ they work harder than anyone up on the screen, without even gettin’ any of the love for it, and then them politicians have to go and make a fuss and treat ‘em bad!”

“I had the most iron-clad, irrefutable evidence that I was not the least bit inclined towards Communism.” It had been the very simple question of ‘Have you ever _seen_ one of my films?’ “They didn’t have that proof, and as they are underpaid and underappreciated, it would make sense if they _were_ drawn towards Communism. What applied to the screenwriter applies to the make-up girl.”

“It still ain’t right!”

“I could not agree more, Hobie.” Laurence leaned in to give him a light kiss. “Don’t worry about them. All things pass in time, and that applies to the House Un-American Activities Committee just as it does to everything else.”

The kettle began to whistle, so Laurence got up again—despite the complaints of his aching body—and went over to make the tea. “Laurence?” From the nervous tremble in his voice, Hobie was not about to ask a question about how many tea leaves to use.

“Yes?”

“Why you thank he done it?”

“Good lord, what a question!” Laurence sighed. “Anything I thought I knew about Burt was shattered two years ago. I couldn’t begin to guess why he chose Communism over the country of his birth.”

“And you.”

“Yes.”

“Um…do you…wish he hadn’t?”

Laurence turned away from the half-made tea, and walked back to where Hobie was still sitting at the table. “Don’t say such things.” He ran his fingers through the soft, dark hair, still so rich and full, unlike his own. “If I had no idea his political tastes ran that way, in how many other ways did I fail to see the truth about him? The more I think about the time we spent together, the more I wonder if I was ever anything but a tool to be manipulated in his eyes.” Laurence shook his head. “I would not wish such a duplicitous relationship extended by even an instant.” He smiled. “I am far better off—and far happier—now than I ever was with Burt.”

Hobie stood up, bringing his face so close to Laurence’s that he could feel the younger man’s breath hot on his skin. “I shore do love you,” Hobie said quietly, before closing the distance between them entirely with a deep, passionate kiss.

***

**New York City, 1984**

The waiting was the worst part. Despite having made an appointment, Arthur had no choice but to sit and wait—and wait and wait and wait and wait—until Nathan was actually ready to see him. He must have been sitting there in the antechamber for three quarters of an hour before Nathan’s secretary finally told him he could go in.

The office was just as angular as it had been the previous time Arthur had been there, and no less unsettling. Nathan was sitting at his desk, and smiled at him. “Come on in. Sit down, sit down. So, you’ve finished the article?”

“Yes, sir,” Arthur said, handing over the print-out. It was his third draft—he’d had Curt and Mandy look over the earlier drafts to find errors in spelling, grammar and logic—but it wasn’t really what he considered to be ready for publication. “I’m afraid I had to write it a bit more like an adventure story than like a proper news article.”

“Buried the lead, did you?” Nathan asked, with a laugh.

Arthur sighed. “It’s more like it has three or four leads. In a newspaper, this would be broken up into at least that many different articles.”

Nathan looked intrigued, and started reading without another word. Arthur could do nothing but sit there in silence, watching what he could see of Nathan’s face over the top of the print-out. Unfortunately, that was just his eyebrows, and they didn’t tell him much of anything. His expression was not communicative when he lowered the print-out, either.

“Fascinating stuff,” Nathan commented. “And you have proof of all this?”

“Proof is…for some of this, there’s no chance of proof as such,” Arthur said. “I can prove that President Reynolds’ sister worked in costume design at Capitol Pictures, and that she had fallen under suspicion of complicity in Burt Gurney’s defection.” Curt had gone over Arthur’s head on that one; he had simply called Hobie up and asked about it while Arthur was still working on the first draft of the article. Hobie, being both more plebeian and more friendly, had gotten to know Miriam Andrews far better than Laurentz had, and was easily able to confirm it. “I cannot actually prove that she’s the reason why those newspaper archives ‘ave been censored and why the Committee for Cultural Renewal caused the disappearance of Stella Santos. Technically, I can’t even prove that the committee was behind her disappearance, just that she was last seen heading to Burt Gurney’s Malibu home, which is now owned by the committee. She could still ‘ave been the victim of unrelated street crime for all the proof there is. I don’t see that as the least bit likely, but I can’t _prove_ otherwise. I said so in the article.”

“Yes, but the rest of it?”

“Almost everything in the article came from my interviews with Laurentz, Gurney and the imprisoned Communist writer, Herman.” Arthur shrugged. “I don’t think any of them had any reason to lie to me, but I’m sure the administration will insist that they _were_ lying. Anything to avoid admitting their own guilt.”

Nathan nodded. “Who’s Laurentz’s new lover?” he asked. “Sounded like another former Capitol Pictures actor.”

“Yes, he was an actor at Capitol Pictures, and he’s still publically closeted. I’m not going to betray their trust by exposing his identity. Not even to you, Mr. Nathan.”

Nathan laughed that. (He laughed at everything.) “Well, someone’s likely to find out. I’ll want pictures of Laurentz for the article, recent ones. And whatever photographer goes to take them…”

“I’m sure Laurentz won’t allow a strange photographer to see his lover. They’ve kept their relationship secret for thirty years.” Despite all the parties they used to throw for the rest of the gay Hollywood set. “They won’t slip up now. Make sure your photographer doesn’t get too close to Gurney’s former home in Malibu,” Arthur added. “Just in case. I’m sure Laurentz could provide a good idea for a place on the road to stop for a distance shot, though.”

“Good thinking!” Nathan exclaimed, laughing again. “You take this draft on down to the _Weekly News_ office, and pass on those instructions for the photographs.”

“All right,” Arthur said, accepting the print-out back. “But do you think they’ll print it when the article can’t even say for certain what happened to Stella Santos or where she is now?”

“There’s plenty of news in there without that. And they print what I tell them to print.”

“Yes, sir.” An unsettling reminder that no matter how much he might seem to be in favour of the truth right now, Jeffrey Nathan could turn around and become Big Brother himself.

***

Waiting for this article to be printed was more harrowing than any other wait Arthur had experienced in his entire life to date. (If a test for AIDS was ever developed, he expected that waiting for his test results—or Curt’s—would be even more harrowing.) On the day of its release, Arthur went to the nearest news stand so early that Curt was still asleep when he left the flat, even though he knew a copy would be delivered with the post that afternoon. He couldn’t wait that long to see how it had turned out!

As with the last story he had written for _Weekly News_ , it was the cover story. (Arthur was going to get positively spoilt at this rate.) The cover showed Gurney’s Malibu home—which was, as Laurentz had said, quite beautiful—and a photograph of the young Burt Gurney in a sailor’s uniform, and promised a thirty year retrospective on the most notorious defection the United States had ever seen. While there was the retrospective angle to the article—mostly tracing how Gurney’s defection had fuelled the anti-Communist fervour just when it was finally starting to die down a tiny bit, and thus led directly (if distantly) into the rise of Martin Reynolds—anyone who wanted a truly in-depth retrospective on the defection alone was likely to be disappointed.

Rather than take the article directly back to the flat, Arthur stood nearby to look through it, listening to what other people on the street were saying, to see if anyone mentioned the article. The first mention he heard, unfortunately, was just a couple of young women noticing Gurney’s photograph and commenting on how good-looking he was. Then a few old men wandered by and spotted the article, and started talking about how they remembered the defection. They all bought copies—which was gratifying!—but didn’t stop to read them then and there.

It didn’t take long for Arthur to give up and leave. Who stopped to read a news magazine on the street, after all? They would all read it on the subway or at their desk.

Despite a temptation to go ride around on the subway for a little while and see if anyone was talking about the article, Arthur headed back to the flat. When he got there, he found Curt had gotten up and was making one of his rather unpalatable American-style breakfasts. “How’s it look?” Curt asked.

“Looks good,” Arthur assured him. “They ‘ave really good layout artists at _Weekly News_ , and their photographers seem able to go anywhere. They even got a picture of Gurney on stage in East Berlin.”

“Wow, really?” Curt walked over to him. “Lemme see. Does he perform in drag or anything?”

“Of course not,” Arthur sighed. “He’s wearin’ a tuxedo.”

“That’s boring.” Curt scowled, and shook his head. Then he suddenly paused, frowning. “I forgot to ask: did you ever tell him about Hobie bunking down with his ex?” Curt asked, a bit of a malicious grin on his face.

Arthur sighed. “How could I ‘ave? I was lookin’ at him and thinkin’ about how he’d betrayed his fans and all—about how your sister told me they were burning their memorabilia in the streets, and all of a sudden he became Brian in my mind. How could I do that to him if he was another Brian?”

“There’s no such thing as another Brian. The world couldn’t handle more than one Brian Slade.” Curt chuckled. “I don’t like you comparing that asshole to Brian. That’d make me into the old man, you know, and you into Hobie.”

Arthur laughed. “All right, so it’s not a perfect analogy.”

“I don’t mind you being Hobie, but I don’t wanna get compared to that old hardass.” Curt shrugged. “And Brian doesn’t hate you _that_ much.”

“If that was supposed to be reassuring, it failed.” No matter what else he had become, Brian was still Arthur’s teenage idol. He didn’t want to be hated by his erstwhile idol!

Curt seemed to find that funny, and their conversation turned to other matters, starting with the fact that the toast was moments away from catching fire. For most of the rest of the day, they only skirted the issue of the article, their conversation wheeling away from it like so many terrified birds. Though Arthur had hoped to see some reaction on the evening news, there was none, and he ultimately had to turn in for the night without knowing if his story was having any impact at all.

The newspapers the next morning were more informative. They reported that the White House had officially denied everything in the article—even denying that Miriam Reynolds had ever been married (despite that it was a matter of public record that she had been Miriam Andrews between 1950 and 1961 in all legal documents pertaining to her)—and went so far as to call Arthur a Communist and a traitor, neither of which made even the slightest bit of sense. Former Vice-President Mondale, of course, turned it into a campaign promise to investigate the matter should he win the election in November. That evening, the television news showed interviews with people on the streets—following a rather histrionic press conference with a visibly perturbed Reynolds—who mostly seemed inclined to believe everything about Arthur’s conclusion, except that most of them assumed that President Reynolds was blameless, being unaware of what the Committee for Cultural Renewal had been doing to protect his sister’s good name.

The president must have been watching, because the next day he performed a complete reversal, admitting that his sister had worked in the wardrobe department at Capitol Pictures for many years, and that she had been falsely accused in the wake of Burt Gurney’s defection, and yet insisting that he had played no part in this attempted cover-up, that the committee had acted on its own. Naturally, the newspapers pointed out the many problems with his claims, especially the fact that the microform records had to have been censored well over a decade before Reynolds reached the White House, and therefore could not have been done by the new governmental agency that he had set up early in 1981.

It was probably Reynolds’ utter inconsistency that prompted the FBI to start investigating, despite Reynolds’ assurances that he would sort out the matter himself, and that no outside investigations would be necessary. Within two weeks, the FBI announced that they had found Stella Santos, locked in a prison near the Mexican border, which the Committee for Cultural Renewal claimed belonged to the border patrol and was filled only with illegal aliens. (The fact that most of the people in it were not even slightly Hispanic apparently didn’t bother them. Perhaps they wanted to claim they were illegals from Europe, despite the location of their facility.) Stella remained under FBI protection while she recuperated from the unhealthy conditions in the prison, a two week process that had her finally ready to make her statements to the press in early October.

Her story was much what Arthur had surmised it to be: she went to see Burt Gurney’s former home, thinking it had become a private residence again, but when she knocked on the door and explained why she was there, she found herself under arrest. They called it trespassing on federal property (which could under the right circumstances be a federal crime), but there had been no “keep out” signs, nor any fences to signal that the property was in any way off-limits. She had been blindfolded and driven to a new location, where she was subjected to 36 hours in an interrogation room without food or drink, under harsh lights the whole time, until she finally told them everything she had learned in her investigation. Since she had discovered the secret (if that could in any way be an appropriate word for something that was an obscure public record) of Reynolds’ sister, they had locked her up without a word of explanation or any formal charges.

The Committee for Cultural Renewal insisted that Stella’s story was a lie, and that she was in fact an illegal alien who had been detained by the border patrol for that reason. The fact that everyone she knew in New York (primarily her landlady, several editors, and the people from her doll club, which apparently really was just a group of doll enthusiasts) could assert that she was a resident of New York City and had been since she was a small child evidently meant nothing to the committee, as did her American citizenship and passport.

A few days after Stella’s statement was broadcast on the national evening news, Curt decided to start telling his friends, fans and interviewers that he was dating “the man who toppled Reynolds.” Arthur reminded him that was horribly premature—the election was still weeks away, and polls were never 100% reliable—but Curt didn’t stop. Arthur was flattered in more ways than one, but he really didn’t like tempting fate like that! And he was terrified of what was going to happen to him if Reynolds _didn’t_ lose the election.

The story continued to dominate the media—despite efforts by the White House to draw attention to anything and everything else—and discussion of Reynolds’ culpability was never-ending, including debate over whether or not he should be impeached, which continued right up to election day. Curt held a small gathering on election night, inviting just a handful of close friends (Mandy, the Rats and the Rats’ wives being most of the guest list) to watch the results together.

They cheered and toasted each other every time a state’s results were announced for Mondale, and despaired whenever a state was announced for Reynolds. It was a great relief to them all to see New York State turn blue on the map, and Arthur was certainly not surprised to see the southern states turning red one after another. But the south was virtually alone in its support for Reynolds, and Mondale won in a landslide.

“How’s it feel?” Curt asked, grinning at him. “You did just like I said—you got rid of that motherfucker!”

“He’s still in office until January,” Arthur pointed out weakly, not quite sure how to respond to the compliment.

“You’re practically the new Woodward and Bernstein,” Mandy said, laughing. “Don’t be so modest!”

“Newer, better-looking, and one hundred percent deliciously gay,” Curt added, giving his arse a grope.

All Arthur could do was laugh at that. Most of their guests, of course, hastily fled the flat, until only Mandy was still there. She sighed, and drained her drink. “I suppose three’s a crowd, hmm?” she said.

“If you know that, what are you doing still here?” Curt demanded, pulling Arthur closer.

Arthur was momentarily worried that she would take offense at that, but Mandy just laughed. “Well, I’ll see you boys later,” she said, setting down her empty glass and getting to her feet. “Just don’t let all his praise give you a swelled head,” she added, patting Arthur on the shoulder.

“I won’t.” He could feel quite certain of that.

“Don’t worry,” Curt assured Mandy with a laugh. “I’m planning on making something else swell up.” He started caressing the front of Arthur’s trousers, until they heard the front door close behind Mandy. Then Curt finally moved to the really serious foreplay, and didn’t let up until he suddenly came to an abrupt halt, only an agonising moment away from beginning to make love. He leaned in close to Arthur’s ear and whispered “Make a wish.”

“I don’t ‘ave to,” Arthur assured him, reaching back to set one of his hands on top of Curt’s. “It’s already come true.”


End file.
